


Stale in the Summer

by prolonged_autumn



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, But just a little, Dark Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Tease, Eddie Kaspbrak is a cute impatient nymph, Explicit Sexual Content, Hand Jobs, Homeless Richie Tozier, Jealous Richie Tozier, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pet Names, Pining, Possessive Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is Whipped, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Rimming, just Losers hanging out in the summer, no pennywise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28481496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prolonged_autumn/pseuds/prolonged_autumn
Summary: 'You have to stop stealing my shit.''I have to stop stealing everyone's shit. You're not so special, Miss Beverly.''If Eddie asked you'd stop.''Yeah, but if Eddie asked I'd also pulverize the moon with my teeth, so...'Or: in Richie Tozier's life there are three things about to converge: he's just got into summer break, he's recently become homeless, and he's in love with his best friend.(Updates every weekend)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 103
Kudos: 152





	1. School Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT is my new religion, I'm here to either convert you or commune with you. 
> 
> If you're here from my previous fic, Nyctophilia, you can expect similar pining, because I'm an absolute whore for that. 
> 
> Disclaimer for the impatient ones: this fic is fully outlined and half written, updates should be every weekend.
> 
> Disclaimer for context: imagine a slight alternate world-line where there's neither a clubhouse nor a psychotic fucking clown <3 
> 
> Hope you enjoy~

Derry was stale in the summer. 

It dried like an old leaf, yellowed around the edges, brittle and crumpled in texture, simmering on cracked asphalt. 

It was stale. It was dull

But some nights were nice. 

Some nights, a light breeze lifted, and the weeds rustled quietly, and Richie would slide out his window and lay on the tilted roof, staring at the stars; or, if his knee was twitching, if his lungs were aching for breath like he was still confined in his little bedroom, he’d climb down a near tree onto the lawn, and ride his bike through the winding streets, the grey rows of houses that shouted all of them suburban boredom, and towards the forest, to sit and smoke and throw pebbles down the quarry. 

Other nights, when it was his heart that ached, he’d ride his bike to Eddie’s house. 

He wouldn’t go _in_. He’d like to - oh, how he wanted to - but Eddie, upon having freshly turned sixteen, had decided by way of some spiritual fucking epiphany that leaving the window open for Richie was _weird_. Richie had stated his case the best he could, but Eddie had simply shook his head with that pouty lip and those forever-rolling eyes of his, and using that one word, “weird”, he’d defeated every argument thrown at him, gems such as: “you’ve left your window open for me since we were eleven”, “you know I wouldn’t bad-touch you in your sleep, I’m faithful to your mom,” and a third one, which he hadn’t really _said_ as far as sound is concerned, but that he’d thought was pretty obvious in his eyes, and the frustrated clenching of his fingers, and that went like this: “I think I might kill someone if I can’t sleep next to you again.”

But Eddie hadn’t listened, because Richie hadn’t said it, and now the window was always locked. 

Which didn’t mean Richie was banned from the _premises_ of the house. Those terms hadn’t been discussed. Richie had categorically _no_ t discussed them. Sure, there might be some dusty old etiquette book somewhere that advised loitering on other people’s lawns at night, but Richie had never said “please” anyway, and he always put his elbows on the table, and there was no sense in clinging to _some_ rules if he wasn’t honouring the rest. Besides, that entire ideology, that hopeful saying of “those you love are always with you”, was very good where poeticism was concerned, but it wasn’t _true_ \- and Richie might love Eddie, but he could still feel his absence terribly, and sometimes the only thing that could calm him was to step onto his fresh lawn, wander around a bit, maybe stand under his window like some unwanted prince, and try to tame with this mockery of closeness his wishing for more. He’d never stay long, time and creepiness were proportionally related, but often he’d imagine that he might consciously forget Eddie’s idiotic resolution and climb all the way up to his window, like he used to do when they were younger, and once there he’d feel too comfortable in the wide curve of the tree branch to move, and spend some time, just a few minutes, cataloguing the little tosses and turnings of that distant lump on the bed, and the precious sightings of soft brown hair, until the tease of Eddie, _his_ lovely pixie Eddie, became too much, and he slipped in through the window, right under the covers, and woke him up with hungry kisses from his lips to his chest, and Eddie would welcome him with a little whine and spread his legs for him, like he’d been waiting for it all night...

He’d been planning to do one of his clandestine visits that night, but in the end he called it off. School had ended - properly ended, giving way to three glorious months of summer - and the Losers had hung out until night fell, at which point Beverly had to go or risk her father's anger; and the others, suitably depressed after that little call into reality, had dispersed soon after. Richie, of course, had walked Eddie home. Bill had been there too. But what Bill had done was more along the lines of walking _in their direction_. He wasn't gentlemanly like Richie: fuck him. At least he'd kept right on walking after they'd reached Eddie's yard, as he should, since no one was getting invited up besides Richie. 

Then Eddie had stopped, dropped his eyes for a second to kick a stray rock, and looked back up like Richie was the greatest inconvenience in the world for not having already left. 

''Night, Richie.'

'Didn't you say you had some new records?' 

'Yeah,' Eddie dragged the word out skeptically. 'And what, you want to listen to them now, in the dead of night, so my mom can find us and kill _you_ , and stuff me in some closet?' 

Richie shrugged. 

'Didn't know your mom was into necrophilia, but hey, I'm game if she is.' 

'You're disgusting.' 

'Come on! We can look at them.'

'Look… at the records.' 

Once more a shrug. 

'They make some cool reflections on the wall if you angle them just right.'

'Did you hit your fucking head or something?' Eddie asked wearily. He was shivering, shivering just a little, and clenching jaws and fists alike to try to hide it. Richie noticed it. He could interpret almost every little tick of his. And really, it was Eddie's fault that he was cold, wasn't it? There was such a thing as jeans. He didn't _have_ to wear those delectable little shorts all the time, like he wanted to be eaten in the streets. 

But he couldn't say that. God forbid Eddie really did decide to replace the shorts. So he just observed:

'You're cold.'

Eddie gave him a snippy look.

'That'll change as soon as I get inside.' 

'You could have my jacket,' Richie offered, already shrugging one sleeve off - because if there ever was a life goal worth having, it was that of seeing Eddie wearing his clothes. 

Eddie just stepped back, however, his eyes skittering like he was truly checking Richie for a concussion. 

' _Or_ I could go inside.' 

'Alright, let's go inside,' Richie grinned.

' _I'm_ going inside,' Eddie's whisper was about as frustrated as a whisper could be. 

'No, you're not, you're talking to me.' 

And now Eddie was just walking backwards towards the door, having apparently given up on him. 

Richie, of course, followed. 

'For God's sake, fuck off.' 

'I'll be bored! Let me in.' 

They'd reached the porch. The night was pleasant - if you weren't wearing skimpy shorts, that is - and school had ended, summer was starting, and Richie could still feel some last drips of adrenaline in his blood from hanging out with the rest of the Losers, and he didn't want to turn back and walk away on his fucking own. He wanted to wrap Eddie up in his jacket, just for the time it took him to unlock the door; and then he wanted to go upstairs with him, lay down on his bed with him, and maybe - yes, definitely - the window would be open, and the lazy summer breeze would be curling in, and Eddie would whine that he was still cold, because he whined about fucking everything, and Richie would smooth the covers over both of them and pull him closer…

It wouldn't happen, though. Not if he pushed once, not if he pushed a hundred times more. 

He leaned against the wall with a defeated sigh. The soft click of the door hurt his ears. 

'Sleep tight, Eds.'

'Yeah,' Eddie said as he shuffled in. 'Check your head in the mirror tonight.'

With that he closed the door. 

Well, it might not have been the goodnight kiss he was hoping for, but it wasn’t _too_ bad. At least Eddie cared about his head. 

So the first evening of summer break had ended on a pretty anticlimactic note. It wasn’t that he had expected some great change of heart - after all, he was very well acquainted with their dance, wherein he did all the armwork, clinging to shoulders and lacing waists, and Eddie took all the steps, specifically _away_ from Richie - but there was a hope, wasn’t there?, when summer came, a senseless hope whenever days became longer and fireflies began to flutter in the nights, like everything in life might get better. Richie hadn’t thought, he hadn’t expected, but he had _hoped_. And as he walked away, the ashes of that hope still trembled weakly in his stomach, never-dying, so he might never forget, and always suffer. 

But there were other problems, at least, to keep Richie’s mind off things. He could muse over Eddie’s pretty face - or the way he strutted around like a fucking firecracker, guitar riff, lion cub - all he wanted during the day, and certainly during his dreams, whether he wanted or not, but come the night and early mornings he had some special concerns. Namely, he’d very recently become homeless. 

Now, that wasn’t the sort of thing one shares with friends. It was a detail, a technicality. And one might even _actively withhold_ this little detail from said friends, if the reason why one’s homeless was directly related to one of them. Particularly if one’s parents happened to break into one’s drawers - one’s discreet little drawer, in the bedside table tucked between the bed and the wall, and usually covered in dirty clothes, and locked and private and fucking _secret_ \- which was filled with pictures of one of these friends, and some other blatant tokens of homosexuality, magazines and cut-outs, and one frankly mortifying bottle of lotion. If _that_ should be the reason why one was kicked out of the house, then it ought to be perfectly understandable why one would prefer to live as a bum than to tell the truth. 

Besides, life as a bum had its glamorous moments. In a rustic, minimalistic sort of style. His parents had taken the liberty to fill a duffel-bag with his clothes, which was relatively nice of them, impotent demons from hell as they were; during school, he got lunch for free, shower and bathroom rights and, in maths class, and chemistry class, and mostly every class, he got a chance to sleep in a place that was actually _indoors,_ no argument about it. Then, an employee from the diner, a fucking saint gracing the earth, had become aware of his situation, by having caught him sleeping on the forest ground one night, and since then he’d been sneaking him some food, once a day if he could, cold chips or the rest of the shredded lettuce, sometimes a beautiful burger; and that was not to mention that he was still pretty well acquainted with his parents’ schedules and, although they’d been wise enough to lock most of the windows, they’d forgotten that skinny little bathroom one, which was accessible through some really impressive parkour. So he’d dared break in a couple of times, to get more of his clothes or have a shower, raid the fridge, lay on his bed listening to his records for an hour of blissful peace...

It wasn’t too bad. Or, better said, it was terrible, but it could be worse. 

Knowing that school was about to be over, however, and with it gone his lunches and free showers, Richie had had to resort to some drastic measures. He’d told Beverly. _Only_ Beverly, and under so many promises of secrecy that she could never disentangle herself from them. Granted, it’d been selfish of him to tell the one Loser who was most at risk in sneaking him into her house - but she was the only one he could trust. The others would fuck things up with their golden retriever minds, all nice and simple and fucking _stupid_ : they’d tell each other, they’d come up with some great plan, in the process they’d inform his dear Eddie, and then how could he ever look at Richie seriously again? He was already Eddie’s casual clown of a friend, he didn’t need to be a _homeless_ clown. He wanted to look good for Eddie. A _catch._

So Beverly gave him some food sometimes - the two of them had become experts at shoplifting granola bars - and, with strict caution, let him into his house for quick showers. Obviously, it was out of the question for him to sleep in her bedroom. Should her father find him, there was a _very_ high chance that he might go on a literal murder rampage. The sleeping situation had been concerning for a while - finally, about three days before the end of school, he’d fixed it. In the forest, a short way off from the river, there was this torn down greenhouse, abandoned, glass panes covered in ivy and weeds, the inside a mess of wildlife and broken, dusty tables. Well, the roof was intact, he’d been patching up some of the broken windows; and he’d pushed up some tables to make a little fort; and he’d stolen a pillow from his house, and Beverly had given him a blanket - overall, that small abandoned greenhouse had become quite the home. 

And in that greenhouse ended the first night of the summer break. Richie laid under his table fort, curled under his blanket and looked absently through the glass walls. The trees and bushes rustled quietly; the higher branches dragged across the tilted glass ceiling; the moonlight filtered through the leaves and danced on the forest ground. Summer nights were warm. It wasn’t that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to answer every comment, so if you want to chat about the fic and the fandom I'm all eyes and ears and lightning speed thumbs <3
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451.


	2. Beginning of Summer I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with summer Derry shenanigans.

They weren’t exactly the picture of originality on their first day of break. Then again, it wasn’t like Derry was filled with entertainment opportunities. They could go swim, ride their bicycles, lay down on the street and count how long it took for the burning asphalt to flay their backs, insult Henry Bowers and his friends for an extreme version of tag - “High stakes, high rewards!” - _or_ they could go to the arcade. Their plan was to meet at noon. Half past noon came in and only Richie, Stan and Mike were there. 

‘They’re not gonna let us in.’ 

‘Yes, they are.’

‘They’re not.’

‘God, Stan, would you stop being such a chikenshit?’ groaned Richie, clawing at his eyes from under his glasses. ‘Mike’s right, they’ll let us in. I mean, why the fuck wouldn’t an _arcade_ let us in?’

‘Because they’re _full_.’

‘Arcades don’t get full.’ 

Stan looked at him like he was a very, very small insect on the ground. 

‘Are you… Do you think arcades are fucking magic? They just infinitely expand when convenient? No, Richie, they’re _arcades_. _Rooms._ Four walls, you see? And when too many people get inside it, it gets _full_.’

‘Not as full as your mom last-’

‘Beep beep, Richie,’ said Mike, laying a calming hand on Stan’s shoulder. 

Neither of them said anything else, which was a victory Richie didn’t deserve. He knew he was being particularly unbearable that morning - Stan’s mom, the poor woman, had been severely molested - but the truth was he was antsy. He wanted to see Eddie. He _always_ wanted to see Eddie, and that first greeting of the day was the most important. It meant Eddie was alright and happy, or as alright and happy as he could be with his pathogenic conspiracy theories and general hatred for the world, and that he was talking to Richie, still calling him a friend, still reluctantly bumping his shoulder, despite how unnerving Richie might have been the day before; and, above all, it meant that maybe _that_ day Eddie might speak to him a bit nicer, or smile with a little blush, or let linger a touch, or any of those insignificant signs Richie had been dreaming of collecting every night since they were eleven. None of that could happen, however, before they met up: and if _he_ managed to be on time, he the fucking _homeless_ boy sleeping in the forest, then why the fuck couldn’t sweet suburban Eddie?

They waited a while longer, sitting on a short wall by the road and swaying their legs, before the four remaining members deemed to show up. They weren’t even walking, they were _dragging_ themselves through the burning cement with lazy smiles and laughs, the absolute fucking idiots. Ben had an arm around Beverly, while Bill and Eddie were a few steps off with their own private smiles - and yes, Richie knew no one was thinking it, knew it was a forbidden thought to have, but if one were to compare those two pairs, one might almost think it right that Bill should also have an arm around Eddie’s lean form, maybe a couple of fingers twining through those chocolate curls… but Bill liked girls, _Eddie_ liked girls and, most importantly, Derry _demanded_ they liked girls, so Richie knew that was impossible. But he could still look at them and their stupid smiles and wish they were just one fucking step farther away.

Stan jumped to his feet as soon as the others had reached them.

‘You’re late.’ 

‘I think what Stan is trying to say,’ Richie added. ‘Is that you’re so fucking late that the only acceptable excuse you could have was if you were _dead_.’ 

‘Dad wouldn’t let me out,’ Beverly said dryly. Mike looked back at the arcade: a queue had formed, all the other uninspired kids desperate to kill some hours away from the sun. 

‘You c-c-couldn’t go wait in line?’ 

‘I’m sorry, your majesty, we didn’t want to stand for forty five minutes,’ Richie drawled. He’d discreetly jumped off the wall as well, and circled back to stand besides Eddie. He tried to smile at him - he wouldn’t say hello, because then everyone would hear and it wouldn’t be _private_ \- but Eddie was looking through his fanny pack and didn’t notice. 

‘Well, didn’t the q-q-q… the line start just a little while ago?’ Bill raised an eyebrow. 

‘Whatever,’ Richie snapped. ‘What do we do now?’

Ever the pragmatic, Ben had the idea that they could have an early lunch: some could stay behind to watch the queue, while the others went out to get some food from the diner. And then with Mike suggesting they get smoothies from the new shop a short way off, some saccharine summer flavours to really mark the beginning of break, it was decided that they should split into three teams. 

‘I’m not staying here another second,’ declared Stan. ‘Who was _late_ should stay.’ 

Bill and Ben readily agreed, hopping onto the short wall with pristine scout boy looks. Eddie went to join them, saying he was too tired to keep walking, but Richie grabbed his shoulder with a little more nails than necessary. 

‘What the fuck, dickhead?’

‘You have to go get the drinks,’ Richie explained innocently. ‘I know you’ll want to make sure no one’s dousing your little mango smoothie with unholy chemicals.’ 

Eddie looked about to argue, if only for the sake of it, but he couldn’t come up with anything to say. Of course he couldn’t. Richie knew him better than anyone, all his little quirks and neuroses, not specifically because Eddie was more open with him, but because he listened better, he remembered for longer, and he fucking cared the _most_. If someone had gotten a smoothie for him without his supervision, he would have fretted the entire time, all restless fingers and adorably pinched eyebrows, considering every germ his mother had warned him about, every unethical and unhealthy way to prepare a drink, every list of poisonous exotic fruits, Richie couldn’t even imagine what else... but Eddie knew, and he also knew how to avoid it, so he only shrugged away Richie’s hand and let out a fussy little sigh.

‘But I’m _tired_.’ 

‘I’ll carry you,’ Richie offered with an easy grin.

‘Oh, so you’re getting the drinks too?’ Eddie arched an eyebrow. ‘Now I’m definitely not going.’

‘Now, Eds, there’s such a thing as an inside voice. In any sense, you’ll have to learn to love me, because I want to see what flavours they have,’ Richie said. It was a very obvious lie - he’d always asked for chocolate everything ever since he could talk - but no one seemed to notice, and he had a moment of inner cheering for getting Eddie and himself in the same team. Unfortunately, his little scheming didn’t come through perfectly. The group thought it best a third person should go and help carry the drinks: it wouldn’t just be him and his Eddie. But then the wonderful Beverly Marsh, the saviour that she was, offered to join, that she wanted to have a smoke with him anyway - and _she_ was the most silent and slick of all of them, as far as third wheels went, mostly because she knew enough, she’d guessed some and coerced from Richie the rest, to want to stay out of the way. Really, apart from he and Eddie alone, it was the perfect team. Richie was so happy about it that he even clapped Bill’s shoulder with a friendly “Stay alert, soldier” before they left. 

The smoothie store and the diner were in opposite directions, which meant they didn’t have to walk even a little with Mike and Stan. The street was mostly empty, just a car slowly passing by, windows rolled down and the slightest hint of classic rock slipping from them; right at the end of the street, up where it met a corner, a bicycler, Richie was pretty sure it was their maths teacher, by her cadaverous back; and behind them still, the chattering of the kids waiting at the arcade, roasting very obediently for the promise of popcorn and games. Richie took a deep breath: _this_ was summer, nothing and no one. Impulsive, he threw an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, tugging him closer and giving him a little shake. 

‘So what do you think you’ll have, Eds? Strawberry? Vanilla? Berries? Papaya? Oh, I know. Chocolate: sweet, just like you.’

Behind them, Beverly snorted. Richie paid no mind to it. He was watching the way Eddie rolled those precious little brown eyes of his. So fucking cute. 

‘Thought you’d already decided I’d have mango,’ he said. Then, as if remembering his obligations, ‘And don’t call me that.’

‘Sure thing, sweetheart. Anyway, you don’t _have_ to have mango. You can have whatever you want. Let your heart soar free. You don’t even have to settle on _one_ flavour. I’ll buy you an extra one,’ Richie offered, clinging a bit tighter to Eddie’s side as he tried to squirm away. But then he remembered his current situation of “I barely have enough money to buy my own food, and _that_ I’m spending on cigarettes”, and he sighed. ‘Or, you know, I’ll bless your choice of a second smoothie. Support it. Spiritually. Not monetarily.’

Both she and Eddie rolled their eyes at him, Beverly mostly amused and Eddie with that little way of his, tuned to perfection, which in a couple of ticks of muscle made him look like he was rethinking his entire life. No one could do it as well as him, and he never did it better than when he was doing it at Richie. Maybe because of that, of how special it felt, it turned Richie on a little. Something about that impatience, frustration, fucking _haughtiness_ of his made Richie wonder if he could break it. If maybe, when Richie was snapping his hips hard against that tight little body, those eyes would turn soft and pliant for him, wonderfully trusting, seeking Richie’s touch rather than recoiling and using his mouth to moan instead of complain... but _that_ was not a clever thought to have with Eddie pressed against his side, burning hot from the summer sun, unless he wanted to be forced to do some very discreet pelvis maneuvering. At least Eddie didn’t call him out for his spectacularly awful way with words: he was much too busy rummaging through his fanny pack again.

‘What the fuck are you looking for?’ 

‘My inhaler. I think I left it at home,’ Eddie replied with a pinched frown.

‘You know you don’t really need it, right?’

‘Yes, Richie, I _know_.’

‘Then what’s with the “I’m going to tragically die in about a minute” look?’

‘That’s because of _you_ , Trashmouth,’ Eddie sniped back, closing his fanny pack with a frustrated huff.

‘Okay, _ow._ I know sticks and bones may break my bones, but words fucking _hurt_.’

‘That’s not how that goes.’

‘I’ve adapted it,’ Richie shrugged. 

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Beverly, looking significantly more at Richie than Eddie, ‘but we’re here.’ 

Of course they were, because Derry was three fucking square inches, no room to fucking _breathe_ , much less to have a meaningful conversation with the love of your life. He deflated, and Eddie, devious little Eddie, seized the opportunity to slither away from under his arm and hop over to the shop’s window, peeking into it like a curious toddler, except, Richie knew, with the critiquing eye of a health and safety inspector. Richie sighed, watching him with his arms crossed, planted in the middle of the sidewalk. God damn that sneaky little body. At the same time: God _b_ _less_ that sneaky little body. And in general: _God_ , that body. All slim and delicate, like Richie could break his arm just by putting it between his teeth, and then kiss it better, all gentle and sweet, to mend his sugar bones. 

Beverly bumped his side. 

‘Quit staring, it’s creepy.’ 

Richie shrugged, not taking his eyes off Eddie.

‘Can’t help it.’

So Beverly helped him herself, by standing between him and his little sunshine, his fireworks, his summer day.

‘Do you need money?’ 

‘Nah, I just won’t order one. Who even _needs_ to drink-’

‘You can have some of mine.’

‘Aw, Bev, aren’t you sweet?’ Richie gave her a lopsided grin - and he meant it, he truly did, and a little percentage of his brain was quite aware that he should thank her seriously, but _most_ of his brain was otherwise engaged trying to peek over her shoulder, discreetly and only for a moment, all he needed was a moment, just to check, just to make sure…

‘ _Richie_! Jesus, do you think he’s gonna get kidnapped or something?’ 

‘Well, he’s so small,’ Richie reasoned. ‘He’s like a pixie. Someone could just slip him into their pocket.’ 

‘You’re obsessed.’ 

‘I’m a concerned citizen,’ he shrugged. ‘Hey, as long as we’re sharing that smoothie, would you get the chocolate one?’

Beverly gave him a look of daggers, but whatever words were about to follow it were interrupted by Eddie showing up again. He had a crease on his brow, his hands were stuffed into the pockets of his little shorts: they were out of strawberry. 

‘How the fuck do they just _not_ have it? Don’t they have a fucking _storage_? I swear to God I hate this town,’ he was ranting. ‘And you know what else? They take the smoothies behind this little door before serving them. It’s only for five seconds. What the fuck are they doing to the smoothies that they can’t show us?’

‘Maybe they’ll put steroids in yours. Your body sure could use them.’

‘And maybe they’ll put poison in yours. _Everyone_ would thank them.’

Richie clasped at his heart while Beverly snorted. Then, with a little smile on her lips, she took a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket and pointed at the parking lot to the right of the shop. It was small, ten parking spaces, the black ground burning their feet through their shoes and melting the thin layer of air over it, so it swirled around like a fever dream. Behind it was a patch of overgrown yellow weeds, and one lonely graffitied bench. 

‘The boys can wait a while for their drinks. Let’s sit.’ 

Richie followed her promptly. Beverly had become his main tobacco provider that past month: his own measly stash was mostly made of what _she_ gave him and, when they’d gotten together during school, if he had a moment of happy glazed eyes and smoke pouring from his lips, it was safe to say it was due to the offered end of her cigarette. They both deposited themselves on that flimsy bench, their backs pressed against a boldly written, neon green “EAT MY DICK”. Beverly lit her cigarette and closed her eyes with a sigh. Eddie stood a few steps off, toeing one of the parking lot lines. 

‘Sit, Eds, there’s room,’ Richie said, patting the bench beside him. 

‘No, thanks.’

‘Come _on_. We don’t bite.'

Eddie just glared. 

‘The smoke.’ 

‘You don’t have asthma, Eddie,’ Beverly said calmly. 

‘I know, but I _t_ _hink_ I do,’ he gritted out. Her sensible tone must have worked a little, however, for he took one valiant step forward. It was a bit like getting a deer to eat from your hand, Richie thought: or to comfort a cat, an elegant ball of neuroses, proud and aloof, that you just want to have safe and content in your lap. 

Richie wasn’t good with skittish animals, and he definitely wasn’t good with Eddie, so his plan was to let Beverly do all the work, then hopefully steal the reward for himself.

But at that moment Eddie turned to him, to _him_ , and with one frustrated wave of his hand he said: 

‘Can’t you just-’

‘Can’t I what, precious?’ Richie asked immediately, sitting a little straighter. ‘I can do anything, just try me,’ but Eddie just kept staring, frowning, swaying a little where he stood in the middle of that empty parking lot, and Richie, getting insecure, forced a laugh. ‘You know, anything except get lost. I mean, I’ve got a fucking impeccable sense of direction.’

‘No, I mean… forget it,’ Eddie looked down tersely. ‘Have fun killing yourselves.’ 

With that, his brief moment of indecision ended: he was all provoking confidence again. Spinning on his heels, fists clenched by his sides, he walked back to the shop. Richie watched on, dumbfounded. What the fuck had _that_ been? He hadn’t said anything, _Eddie_ hadn’t said anything, just a bunch of muttered words, and still he’d managed to fuck it up. He groaned. His fingers curled tightly around the back of the bench.

‘I don’t get you two,’ Beverly said after a while.

He just nodded before stealing the cigarette from her fingers. He was about to bring it to his lips - then, with a grunt of frustration, he handed it back to her. 

‘Well, could you try? Because I need some fucking help.’

‘Go after him,’ she shrugged. 

‘I know _that_. It’s kind of my move. My only move. But what do I say?’ 

‘You know, Richie, I'm not _good_ at this shit.'

‘You’ve got Ben! You _had_ Bill! Fuck, you could probably have Eddie too,’ Richie murmured miserably, burying his face in his hands. 

‘Don’t be a fucking idiot,’ she said, before gesturing towards the shop. ‘Go on and say whatever the fuck you say every single day that makes him like you again.’ 

Then she offered him the cigarette again: for courage, she explained. He itched for it, had half a mind to take it, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He knew Eddie didn’t like the smell. He knew he’d recoil and twist his face, absolutely forbid touch and actively sit far from him. And he always looked _afraid_. Not angry, not disappointed - that Richie could have teased. No, he’d shake with fright at that grey cloud of tobacco, he’d run from it like it were a beast, like _Richie_ were a beast. So he’d always hated meeting up with Eddie when it was noticeable that he’d smoked, and now that he was about to apologize to him - for _what_ , he didn’t know, he was too desperate to care - it seemed like an even worse prospect. 

Still, he didn’t have to tell Beverly that. He knew how pitiful it was that he could only bring himself to care about the rotting of his own lungs when _Eddie_ was concerned; that his comfort, his approval, his fucking smile were a drug far more urgent than nicotine; that he’d throw his entire stash into the river that very second, and promise never to smoke again, if only Eddie were to kiss him once. 

Instead, he pushed Beverly’s hand away and rose to his feet. 

‘No, thanks, Bev, who knows where your mouth’s been.’ 

She leaned back, nodding towards the neon green graffiti behind her. 

‘Eat my dick, Tozier.’ 

‘Gladly,’ he winked. 

Finding Eddie was simple enough. He was sitting on one of the high tables that lined the right wall of the cramped little shop, idly tracing some pattern on the baby blue tabletop with his finger. His legs didn’t touch the floor, they dangled several inches off: it wasn’t very unusual, not with the height of those stools, but Richie was still torn between wanting to pinch his cheeks and bend him over the table. 

‘Hey,’ he said with a fake smile, easing onto the spare stool. 

Eddie looked at him with unimpressed eyes. 

‘No.’ 

‘Okay,’ Richie laughed lamely. ‘Would it help if I said I’m here for science? You know, me being able to piss you off without doing _anything_ \- that’s a phenomenon that should be studied.’ 

Against his will, Eddie’s lips curled up. 

‘Why would that be science? That’s sociological, tops.’ 

‘Sociology _is_ a science,’ retorted Richie. 

‘It’s fucking not.’ 

‘It is! It’s got fucking numbers, and like… polls and shit.’ 

‘Polls don’t make something _science_.’

‘Well, it’s a scientific method.’

‘Excuse me, if I did a poll right now of who in this shop wants Richie Tozier to die, would I be a scientist?’ 

Richie just laughed, patting Eddie’s soft curls condescendingly.

‘Oh my sweet little Eds, you’re so ignorant about the world. You know, philosophy is a science too.’ 

‘You’re joking.’

‘Nope.’

‘I fucking hate you,' Eddie huffed, ducking from under Richie’s hand. 

They lapsed into silence. Their knees grazed sometimes under the little table - it wasn’t _inevitable_ , not really, as Eddie was proving with his swift evasions, the way he curled his legs as much as he could under his stool; but Richie actively sought the contact with restless gangly limbs, both greedy and shy, thinking of every brief graze as a win while passing them off as a slight. He wanted them to keep talking, talk of nothing in their way that made it _something_ , a joke, an insult, some nonsense they both passionately entertained; he wanted Eddie to pay attention to him, and so he bumped his knee particularly hard; and still Eddie was feigning the most spectacular interest in the walls, the window, the employee dressed in baby blue, like a freak newborn baby, who skittered throughout the little shop. 

‘What did I do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘ _Exactly_! So why are you mad?’

Eddie huffed in frustration.

‘Shut up, Richie.’ 

A new silence. Richie fidgeted all over now, from a foot which tapped at the skinny table leg to fingers that thrummed on the tabletop. Maybe Eddie _wasn’t_ mad at him, not in the way that implied he’d done something wrong. Maybe he was just sick of him. Maybe he’d closed the door on Richie’s face the other night, gone up to his room and finally realized how much of a loser Richie was, always talking shit, always flailing, always rude and selfish; and he knew he couldn’t remove himself from Richie’s life completely, he’d probably pitied him, decided to hang around and let him keep licking his heels, but he wasn’t his friend anymore - and _maybe_ that’s why he’d been late that day, so unwilling to see his unwanted puppy. The thought churned ice in Richie’s stomach. He was frozen now, not a tick of muscle. 

‘Hey, why were you late?’ Richie murmured, and he wished his voice sounded less harsh, less accusatory than it did. 

‘We told you. Bev’s dad wouldn’t let her go.’

‘You were waiting for Bev?’

‘No,’ Eddie frowned. ‘Ben was, and Bill wanted to pass by and make sure everything was alright.’

‘So you were with Bill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘He swung by my house so we could go to the arcade together.’

 _There_ was the root of the issue. Great old hero Bill, who was all of him one golden fucking heart, had become Eddie’s favourite knight. Eddie himself must have deferred to him the honour, given that Richie was so unfit. He wasn’t even a knight, he was a servant, a jester, an obsessed follower of the pretty prince, the type that lays down at his feet and swears to die for him. Richie looked out the window, mostly so Eddie wouldn’t see the darkness in his face: outside, he could see Beverly laying on the bench, legs crossed, a ghost of smoke above her. God, he wished he’d taken her cigarette. 

‘You could have just gone alone, you know. Then you wouldn’t have been late.’ 

‘Well, yeah, _physically_ I could,’ Eddie rolled his eyes. ‘There was nothing stopping me. Look, let’s just… let’s order and go, yeah?’

Richie shrugged, not quite listening… then Eddie gripped his upper arm, warm and steady, pulling him up with that dear impatience of his, and Richie couldn’t find it in him to be mad or, better said, he could, he could hate Bill, and every soft plush girl who might bewitch Eddie in the future, and he could hate himself, but he couldn’t hate Eddie, never as much as he loved him, so he followed, acting up a reluctance he didn’t feel just so Eddie might keep gripping his arm in a modicum of intimacy, sinking his neatly cut nails in the skin there, leaving a mark, deigning to touch. 

‘So what’ll you have instead of strawberry?’

‘I guess vanilla.’ 

‘Vanilla?’ Richie snorted. ‘You’re not getting fucking _vanilla_ , that’s the most boring shit you could choose.’ 

Eddie punched his arm, trying to look annoyed, but when he looked up his eyes were subtly searching. 

‘Then what should I get?’ 

Coaxing Eddie closer to the register, Richie considered. He wasn’t going to pick some weird fucking flavour that tasted like the bottom of an ashtray: he would leave that for Bill, because he was a petty and jealous excuse for a person. He wanted to _please_ Eddie. He wanted Eddie to try his best to find something to complain about, like he always did, the whiny little princess, and then realize he _couldn’t_ , that Richie had done right, and turn soft earnest eyes to him and _thank_ him. 

‘How about caramel? You’d-’

‘Look, Richie! It’s the fucking door, look, look!’ 

Eddie was pointing to a slim little door behind the register with a heavy glare. There was, in fact, a baby blue employee carrying a bright orange smoothie through it. She disappeared inside for the briefest moment - then she returned, same smoothie in hand, and gave it to a freckled little kid. 

‘Am I just obsessing, or was that fucking psychotic?’

‘Yeah, sugar, that _was_ really weird,’ Richie agreed. He turned to see Eddie looking afraid, just a hint, hiding it with anger, and wished he could loop an arm around him to comfort him - but he knew Eddie would shriek if he did it with so many people around and, besides, he didn’t even know if it _would_ be comforting. So he just leaned a little, lips by his ear, and whispered, ‘Want me to ask what they do back there?’

‘You’d do that? Seriously, without making some joke of it?’ 

Richie shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. 

‘Sure.’

‘Then fuck yes, _please_ ,’ said Eddie - and that relieved smile, and the way he’d said please, all genuine and eager, made it a hundred times worth it. Feeling his heart beat wildly, feeling like a fucking _knight_ , Richie bounded up to the register, turning once to check if Eddie was watching, before catching the employee’s attention with an awkward clearing of his throat. 

‘Hi. Hey. So... I’ve a question.’ 

‘Yes?’ the woman prompted in a stale voice. 

‘What do you do with the smoothies back there?’

He was gesturing towards the door, leaning ever so slightly over the counter, and the woman followed his finger slowly. She had a type of blinking like honey was sticking to her eyelids. 

‘We make them.’

‘But we see you guys make them here.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what do you do _there_?’

‘We finish them.’

‘By doing _what_?’

‘We stir them.’

‘Why wouldn’t you stir them here?’

‘Why would we?’

‘Because they’re already here!'

The woman blinked again. It took about five seconds. 

‘Do you want to order a smoothie?’

‘Oh my god,’ Richie sighed. ‘Okay, pleasure talking to you.’

Walking back to Eddie felt a lot like a failure. He stopped next to him and, primly ignoring that woman, whose dead eyes, he could see through his periphery, were still set on him, like they were too sticky to be removed on their own, he bent down towards his ear again. 

‘So… we had a nice little chat, and you’ll be pleased to know nothing nefarious is going down. They, huh… they _stir_ them.’ 

Eddie frowned in absolute confusion. 

‘I’m sorry?’

‘They go behind that door to... well… to stir the smoothies.’ 

To his surprise, Eddie laughed, a wild little sound, skin crinkling around his eyes. 

‘She did _not_ just tell you that they go all the way back there to _stir_ them.'

‘Derry is a weird fucking town, Eds,' he shrugged with a smile.

'Well, now I'm not ordering anything.' 

'That's a wise choice, Eddie baby. I might just follow your advice,' Richie said. It seemed like a great way to justify why Sweet Tooth Tozier was skipping out on a smoothie - or, at least, a better reason than "I currently have ten dollars to my name."

'And the others? We shouldn't let _them_ die.' 

'Well, if they were here, do you honestly think they'd care?' 

'You said yourself it was psychotic!'

'They'll give us shit if we don't buy anything,' Richie reasoned. Noticing Eddie's dubious look, he drew an optimistic smile and, while clapping him on the shoulder, pointed to the little freckled kid slurping his smoothie with full lungs and bright eyes. ' _He_ isn't dead. I mean, he might be drinking hepatitis blood, experimental drugs or microwaved cum, but he's not _dead_.' 

'God, Trashmouth, you're fucking disgusting.' 

'Oh come on! I'm joking! Unless I happen to be right. But even if I am! - what they don't know can't hurt them.' 

Eddie's eyes practically bugged out of his head. 

'What they… I… how does your mind even _work_?' 

'Frequencies, Eddie, above which you puny humans might ever comprehend.' 

They did end up ordering for the other Losers. Their order was a miscellany of strange flavours: if it was to be their last smoothie on God's green earth, then it ought to be an interesting one. Richie managed to pick kale for Bill - fucking _kale_ , could that even be called a smoothie? - and, with that, he deemed his fit of jealousy over, and swore to be friendly again. The lady with the sticky eyelids was the one who rang them up. Eddie took the bag for himself and handed Richie the money the Losers had entrusted them. He refused to pay himself, he was too creeped out by that strange lady, that ridiculous shop, and he actually stepped out onto the street, hip slightly cocked and foot tapping on concrete while he waited for Richie, impatient even with his back turned. 

Richie allowed himself about a millisecond to watch fondly. He had his own share of discomfort in talking to that absolute cyborg of a person, so he spent the entire time looking elsewhere while she processed the order, until his eye settled on the treats displayed on the counter - and finding Eddie's favourite candy bar there, impulsively, fucking _stupidly_ , he added it to the order.

Of course, the ridicule of the situation struck him immediately. And yet, with the woman fetching the little chocolate bar at her roofied snail pace, that is, with all the time in the world to say he’d changed his mind, Richie said nothing. He kept quiet as a mouse, he was dazed, he was imagining Eddie’s thankful smile; and then a thought occurred to him, not any sane, sensible one, like it _should_ have, but a fucking rotten one: each Loser had chipped in about two dollars over the actual price of the smoothies, they didn’t know how much it cost - so take it Richie were to slip just one dollar from each into his own pocket, that would be five dollars total, given that Eddie and himself weren’t buying smoothies, enough to pay for the chocolate, and then three to spare, for a snack or whatever, maybe some cigarettes.

He was going to steal from his friends. 

But was he? Well, in the concept of the thing, he _would_ \- in practice, however, was he really? It was one measly dollar, dollars got lost all the time, disappeared in pockets and disintegrated in wallets, it was _nature_ working its random acts of mischief, Richie was simply the middleman. Besides, he knew they would have given him the money, if only he’d asked. If he’d told them his circumstances. He needed the kindness, but he couldn’t bear the pity. Was that so bad? Was it _that_ morally unforgivable, _that_ practically incomprehensible? 

He didn’t know, he refused to think about it. He left the shop three dollars richer, the candy bar hidden in his pocket. 

Outside the shop, Eddie was looking at the bag with a concerned frown. 

‘Can smoothies melt? I know they’re technically liquid already, but they _seem_ like they’re melting.’ 

‘Anything can melt in this fucking heat,’ said Richie, peering down at the inside of the bag himself. 

They rounded the corner to meet Beverly. As they reached the parking lot, Richie nervously took the candy bar from his pocket and waved it in the air. 

‘Hey, do you want this?’ 

Eddie looked back. His eyes, Richie swore to all gods, actually widened into the roundest little circles at the sight - and then he looked back forward, like he’d seen nothing. 

‘No, thanks.’ 

‘What the fuck?’ Richie rushed to Eddie’s side and waved the candy bar right in front of his face. The thought that he had just spent two precious dollars for Eddie to just _ignore_ him was unbearable. He wished he sounded a little less desperate when he spoke, ‘How do you _not_ want it? I can _see_ that you want it!’ 

‘Would you relax? It’s _your_ fucking candy bar.’ 

‘It’s not _mine_.’ 

‘You bought it, genius.’ 

‘No, I mean…’ Richie huffed. ‘Would you just fucking take it? It’s a gift.’ 

‘A gift? A gift as in… you bought it for _me_?’ 

‘Well, if you keep being a little shit about it, then I bought it for Beverly.’ 

‘No! No, I’ll take it,’ Eddie hurried to say. He took the candy bar with a quick hand, like he half thought Richie was playing some prank, and looked at it a moment. _He_ was blushing now, a little and joyful thing, surely surprise as well, the most adorable sight. ‘Thanks, Richie.’ 

‘You’re welcome, sweetie.’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Eddie rolled his eyes, but his face was still somewhat flushed. There really ought to be something terribly wrong with Richie, because in that moment, with Eddie’s smile shining through his usual mask, vulnerable and happy and _breathtaking_ , he couldn’t care less that he’d stolen from his friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What smoothie flavour is each Loser?
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451.


	3. Beginning of Summer II

Stan and Mike had been the first to reach their rendezvous. The bags of food were on the short wall between Bill and Ben, their elected scouts, and the four boys were sitting, swinging their legs, a laugh rumbling through them slowly, the type of laugh of who is lazy and very happy being lazy, half alive, no purpose, no urgency. 

Behind them, the queue to the arcade had only grown longer. 

‘Has the entire population of Derry decided to master Street Fighter today?’ huffed Eddie while he examined the queue. He dropped the bag of smoothies on the wall and hopped onto it, kicking Ben’s swinging foot in the process. 

It _had_ , apparently. More and more kids had been condemning themselves to that endless wait since they’d left. Bill and Ben had devised a plan, and then run it by Stan and Mike, to have some fun anyway: they had their food, it was near lunch time, they could very well abandon the idea of the arcade altogether and have an improvised picnic by the river. 

‘As long as we haul ass to the forest,’ Richie said. ‘We can’t vouch for the quality of these smoothies in the sun.’ 

Beverly was easily convinced as well. Eddie had his complaints, as Eddie Kaspbrak was wont to have, namely that his feet hurt and that they hadn’t any picnic blankets, so they’d have to sit on the ground. 

‘Worried you’ll have ants running up your legs, sweetheart? You know they’re more afraid of you than you are of them, right?’

‘Go die, Trashmouth.'

But he was persuaded at last by their joint effort, and they made way into the forest. It was a small mercy, the flittering shadow from the trees; and the soft blubbering of the river, as they neared it, singing summer fresh, and the fragrant scent of wilderness blooming and drying under the sunlight put everyone in high spirits. Even Richie, who was fidgeting here and there, throwing nervous glances around, fearing that with every idle step the group was nearing _his_ greenhouse, his little haven, his great fucking _shame_ , managed to keep a smile throughout the walk. And when they settled at last, sitting in a circle by one of the river banks, where Stan, who had his back to the water, could dip his finger in if he stretched enough, and where the tall stale weeds hid them from sight, and the insects buzzed around their food, his smile widened, eased, and rested blissfully on his lips. 

‘Why do I have k-k- _kale_?’ asked Bill, frowning at the drink handed to him. 

‘Random,’ Richie shrugged. 

His little plan of vengeance didn’t work, such is the way with karma. Mike, the healthy freak, _liked_ kale. Bill ended up with a mouth-watering chocolate and banana smoothie, smiling lightly, not even conscious of his glow, so Richie could rightly resent him - no, because Bill’s only fault was how fucking _great_ he was. And Richie feasted on his burger, his first and likely _only_ meal of the day, paid fully by Beverly, with a dry mouth and no drink, because _he_ had five thousand faults, no greatness to be spoken of, and the world liked to put him in his place. 

‘And now… what do we do?’ asked Ben. Every cup had been emptied, every side of fries promptly devoured until their fingers were slick with oil and salt. 

‘We could t-take a nap,’ said Bill, who was laying lazily among the tall weeds. 

‘I brought cards.’

‘Why the fuck would you bring cards, Stan? We were going to an _arcade_.’

‘Because I know we can’t ever get _anything_ done like we fucking plan,’ Stan said, scoffing at Beverly. He took the old deck of cards from his pocket as someone might reveal a small treasure, then placed it on the grass between them. 

‘If we’re playing cards then someone’s got to change places with me,’ demanded Eddie, already standing up and brushing dirt from the back of his shorts. ‘Richie cheats.’ 

‘Only on your mom,’ Richie snorted, before he tugged Eddie back down. He went, which was a victory, and with a glare that was less sharp than usual. Richie couldn’t be sure, he was prone to dreaming and fantasizing, and fatally plagued by hope, but he _felt_ like some warm energy had been simmering between them, a quiet tension while they sat together and ate. They hadn’t talked, not really, and when they had it’d been in the context of the group, not private, not _intimate_ ; and yet Richie had been so painfully aware of every microvement of Eddie’s in the edge of his eye, the little shifting of his knee and methodical way he ate, the shake of his body when he laughed, the untied laces of his left shoe, and _sometimes_ it felt like Eddie was looking at him too, paying him some devoted attention, they were watching each other all this time in some shy promise... or _maybe_ Richie was fucking delirious. Honestly, that ought to be the best explanation: because when Eddie, having finished his burger, had unwrapped the candy bar very calmly and eaten it while talking to Mike, Richie had gone mute and senseless to the world and watched raptly, obsessed, weirdly proud and deeply distressed, wondering if the way Eddie was _not_ looking at him and _not_ speaking to him meant something, if he even remembered Richie had been the one to give him that candy bar, if he hoped Richie was looking, if that millisecond during which Eddie’s knee had grazed his had been _on_ _purpose_. 

He looked back to the circle, he’d been drifting off: everyone was shouting, the precious deck of cards was no longer on the grass. 

‘No, fuck off, I’ve changed my mind - your fingers are gross, let’s do something else.’ 

‘It’s a deck of cards, I’ll buy you a new one!’ 

‘I don’t want a new one, Ben, I want _this_ one.’ 

‘Is it a _magic_ d-d-eck?’ 

‘Fuck every single one of you.’ 

‘I didn’t want to play cards anyway,’ said Mike. ‘Eddie’s right, Richie cheats.’ 

‘What is _up_ with this calling me out? I don’t cheat!’

‘You look at our hands!’ 

‘It’s an alternative strategy, Mikey,’ Richie grinned. There was not a sound, only six looks of casual contempt, and he sighed. ‘Oh, just hide your fucking cards if you’re all going to be little blushing virgins about it. And hand over the deck, Stan.’ 

‘I’ll sooner throw it in the damn river.’ 

‘Do you _fuck_ that deck, Stan? Is that what’s happening? You just can’t bear the thought of someone else’s greasy fingers on your girl’s cur-’

‘Beep beep, Richie.’ 

‘Let’s go swimming,’ Beverly said suddenly. There was a serene authority to her voice, in the way she stood to slip out of her clothes, all sure limbs and easy mind. Everyone scrambled up to follow her. A pile of clothes was formed by the edge of the water, swallowed in yellow weeds: in their underwear, the summer sun heating their skin, burning their hair, they breached the fresh water, shadowed here and there by tall willows, then glistening white from sunlight. Beverly was first, of course, with Mike and Ben close behind, diving without a thought; Stan was picky with the water temperature, he trembled easily, he was inching in; Bill had been so dazed laying in the weeds, so near sleep, that he moved through the water like a spoon would on honey; and Richie had just gone waist deep, revelling in the fresh water cooling his limbs, when that inevitable thought struck him, his pet concern, and he looked around in search of Eddie. 

He was still dressed, still on the river edge, his curls falling over his eyes, his laces still untied, gathering cups and cardboard boxes into a bag. 

‘Hey, Eds,’ Richie called out softly, waddling a bit closer to him, ‘I know litter is terrible and all, but we can take care of it later. You know, _all_ of us.’ 

Eddie just nodded, not looking at him, instead bending down to catch a piece of plastic from the ground. Richie only got a glimpse of it, but he could see it was the candy wrapper, _their_ candy wrapper - and of course Eddie shoved it into the bag, it was a fucking piece of plastic, but Richie still felt a bit hurt. 

‘Come on, Eddie, join us.’ 

‘Richie,’ Eddie sighed, kicking dirt with downcast eyes. ‘We have to wait thirty minutes before we swim.’ 

‘What, because we ate?’ Richie frowned. ‘That’s just some myth made up by lazy parents.’ 

‘It’s fucking not,’ Eddie glared. ‘There’s… there’s _science_ behind it, okay? Blood gets redirected to the digestive tract and… and the temperature shock, and the _pressure_ -’

‘Eds,’ Richie cut him off, knowing very well the type of spiralling of his mind, the illnesses he knew only enough to scare him, the defects and microbes, the fairytale risks and ridiculous what-ifs. He threw his arms open, drawing his most reassuring smile and shifting a little in the water. ‘Am I dead?’

Eddie gave him a look up and down, dry and unimpressed.

‘You _look_ dead.’

And Richie had to laugh at that, small, forced, because there was no use in being vulnerable. He’d inched closer and closer to Eddie, such was his habit: the water grazed the mid of his thigh, exposing too much skin. It wasn’t that he was self-conscious, the Losers had swum together often enough for comfort to settle; but _Eddie’s_ look, and Eddie’s look alone, with the others distracted, and so distinct an assessment in his eyes, made him want to shiver. He wanted to look good for Eddie. Even if it was impossible, he still wished something in his body might appeal, or please, or so much as fucking _intrigue_. Something that made Eddie think: “if I liked boys, then maybe Richie…” And some months ago he might have had some confidence, some vivid delusion to cling to, but he knew he’d gotten skinnier since his parents had kicked him out, his skin pasty, clothes often stained and hair in shambles, and he wasn’t _too_ terrible for a teenager, but he definitely hadn’t the charm he dreamt of and, if anything, the sight of him would only bring Eddie further into the arms of some lipgloss-sticky girl. He dropped his arms, suddenly shy. The air, before so offensive, was fresh on his wet skin. The softly swinging branch of a willow grazed his shoulder. 

‘Richie,’ Eddie sighed. He looked more regretful than concerned, a bit embarrassed as well. ‘You don’t look dead, you look-’ he cut himself off with a huff and averted eyes, a literal curse from hell, it must have been, because Richie would _kill_ to hear the end of that sentence, to know if that little flush in Eddie’s skin was anything _good_. But Eddie didn’t end it - no, he was hiding, he was diverting. Toeing a nestle of weeds, he urged, ‘Look, just go meet the others, I’ll be there in a little while.’ 

Richie arched an eyebrow. 

‘A little while meaning thirty minutes?’

‘Well, only twenty five now,’ Eddie consulted his watch. ‘Maybe… maybe thirty, yes, to be safe.’ 

‘Oh Eddie.’

‘Would you shut up and _go_?’ 

There was an earnestness in Eddie’s eyes, a burning glint of despair: like he was sacrificing himself, fastening the tendrils of some beast tighter around him, while sparing Richie - and it _was_ a monster, his paranoia, all bark and no bite, never bite, it had no teeth, only an eloquent tongue. How could Richie leave him to it? It was not his place, but it was a desolate place, and he had to help. 

‘Just come in a little, Eds. I promise nothing will happen,’ he tried, edging ever so slightly closer to the line between river and soft dirt, where tall weeds brushed and tickled his chest. 

‘Great,’ Eddie rolled his eyes, ‘Now _Trashmouth_ has promised, all danger will stand down.’ 

‘You’re damn right!’ Richie grinned. ‘And if anything _does_ happen, which it won’t, I’ll just carry you.’ 

‘Carry me?’

‘Yes. You know, if your body decides to flop the fuck out like a dead fish.’ 

Eddie let out one immense sigh. He’d dropped the bag of litter, however, in favour of crossing his arms, which Richie was choosing to interpret as a good sign. 

‘Other things could happen. I could start spasming, from my blood being focused on my digestion. Or my limbs could paralyze and I’d drown,’ he frowned, looking very much like he was reciting what Ms. Kaspbrak had taught him, the perfect son to the worst mother. 

‘You won’t drown, Eds, I’ll be right there the whole time,’ Richie said softly. 

‘What if it happens to _you_?!’ Eddie shrieked.

‘Then _you_ help me! It won’t happen to both of us at the same time.’ 

‘And all of _them_?’

‘We’ll help each other. That’s what friends do: they help when-’

‘When you flop out like a dead fish?’ 

‘We should all make an oath to that. Come on, what do you say?’ 

And Eddie sighed, one great and shuddering thing, one strike of resolution steeling his entire body before he suddenly pulled his shirt off - and then came his fanny pack, his shoes, those untied laces tangling in his frenzied fingers, his little shorts… and Richie just watched, dumbstruck, _perverted_ , because one only undressed like that when they had the confidence of a _friend_ , the trust there would be no ogling eyes, no judgement; and Richie might not be judging, but he was admiring, which was its own type of forbidden; and creepy, unreasonably so, in the way he was eagerly tracking every inch of skin so casually revealed to him, wondering how it felt, how it tasted, what whiny sounds Eddie might make if Richie were to graze his fingers over every inch of skin, or lightly slap it, _harshly_ slap it, before soothing it with his tongue; and wondering also how could Eddie not see how decidedly _not_ casual, _not_ platonic and _not_ fucking innocent his watching was. 

Stripping over, Eddie scratched his forearm, rooted in his place. There was a redness spreading over his upper chest, curling over his lean shoulders, and Richie looked away, cursing himself for having embarrassed him. 

‘You’re supposed to wait thirty minutes,’ Eddie mumbled at last, almost to himself. 

‘I know, baby,’ Richie nodded, holding out a hand to him. Eddie glared, probably taking the name for a tease - and Richie cringed, shouted in his mind, but he didn’t correct him, he wasn’t brave enough, he could only force a little smile. 

After a long moment, during which they heard Mike or maybe Ben yelling in the distance, from the curve of the river where it was guarded by the shade of the enormous willows, a gleeful sound followed by laugher, as if _that_ had encouraged him, Eddie finally dipped his feet into the water, placing his little hand in Richie’s. There was no stopping him now: he was outrunning fear, moving very decidedly into the water, and Richie swam a little backwards, tugging him by the hand. Now the water was to his chest - it was to Eddie’s neck. 

‘You know,’ Eddie began with a nervous laugh. ‘We were talking for so long, maybe it _has_ been thirty minutes.’

‘I’m surprised it’s not dark yet.’ 

Eddie smiled, then faltered, then looked straight down at the turvy water, only dipping his chin in. Richie heard him take one deep breath. 

‘Stay here, Richie. I mean it.’

‘I swear it, Eds.’ 

And with nothing else, Eddie dove under the surface. The water rippled serenely in concentric circles, rolling softly onto Richie’s chest. It was very strangely silent there, in that patch of the river. Peaceful, with the murmuring of the leaves and the song of the river. The other Losers’ voices, their smothered laughs and shrieks, seemed so distant, barely different from the chirping of a bird. Richie paid no mind to them. He only waited for Eddie to reappear.

He did, some time later, and some distance from Richie. His curls were matted to his forehead, water slithered from the bridge of his nose and beaded at the tip. He was beautiful, brilliant, even more so when he drew an excited smile and shouted:

‘It’s fucking _cold_!’

His fear had subsided, he swam back to Richie without hesitation, and together they made their way to the rest of the group. First they found Mike, who was floating lazily by a tuft of cattails. 

‘What took you guys so long?’ he asked upon seeing them. 

‘Oh, you know, we were enjoying the view,’ Eddie said. 

‘Ah, the view. Of trees, and trees, and more trees?’

‘It’s called _Nature_ , Mikey,’ drawled Richie, ‘You know what it is: you’re swimming in it.’ 

The others were farther off. They were cutting through the water in a frenzy, there was laugher and screaming in equal parts; and crisscrossing the air was a flash of white, Richie and Eddie knew very well what it was even before it fell on the water ahead of them, a long and wiry stick. They ought to buy some stupid rubber ball, they _always_ said it, every time they left the river with their skin pink and raw - they always forgot - and they always found some harmless stick laid on the soft earth of the river margin, then turned it into a weapon, threw and launched it, complained all the way through, loved it regardless, an extreme game of catch. Ben waddled towards them, a wide smile on his face, a red mark on his round cheek: he caught the stick, waved it once in warning, then threw it at them. 

Richie had longer arms, he was a little ahead, he had all the advantage - and still Eddie lunged forward, his little lovely spring, and caught it just a millisecond before him. Swimming towards Ben, he turned with a devious smile and threw the stick right at Richie’s center. Richie dove, trying to dodge it, but it hit his shoulder with a sting. They _really_ had to buy a ball.

‘You little fucker!’ he shouted and threw him the stick. Eddie sneaked away, Ben, having seized it, swung it at Beverly, and the game went on. 

The problem about it, if they were being honest, was Beverly and Bill. They had this dormant gene for violence, innocent gurus as they might be elsewhere, that stirred with competition. Besides, their aim was good. It was a bloodbath. Mike, the only clever Loser, refused to play on account of them. The others still had this hope, this _stupid_ hope, that they might one day escape a throw by Beverly or Bill without a pink imprint on their skin; and since it was a point of pride more than anything else, no number of fails could overthrow the eagerness for a success, and they could spend hours swimming amidst foam and wet weeds, screaming war. Throughout it all, Eddie didn’t die. His limbs lost no blood, he didn’t paralyze, he never drowned. Richie suspected he might have even forgotten about it. He kept a watchful eye on him, however, and stuck close by, if only because those words - “Stay here, Richie. I mean it” - still tugged at his heart. And when they’d become tired of being whipped and whipping back, when their bodies had become heavy and their smiles too lazy, and they’d dispersed with sighs and a half-hearted accusation that Beverly and Bill definitely had some sadistic tendencies to check, he swam towards him. 

‘It’s Bill, that _monster_ ,’ Stan was telling Eddie. ‘It looks like I’ve been tortured.’ 

‘I wouldn’t say tortured.’ 

‘It’s fucking swollen.’

‘Yeah. Looks like a bee stung you.’ 

‘Sure, if the bee was the size of my fist,’ Stan sighed, still looking at his pink arm. ‘I swear, next time we’re all getting sticks and throwing them at Bill.’ 

‘You just say that because you’re shit at throwing,’ Eddie snorted. 

‘Am not!’ 

‘You are. You do this thing with your wrist, where the fuck did you come up with it? Wait, I’ll show you-’

‘Hey, you guys want to go sit down?’ Richie finally interrupted. He didn’t _quite_ know why he’d said it, he’d only wanted to say _something_ , to get eyes on him - and then seeing the two boys look up at him and, from surprise, Eddie’s fingers, which were about to take Stan’s wrist, dive back into the water, he finally understood why he’d spoken in _that_ particular moment, and he had but a brief second to marvel at how much of a small, petty, jealous shit he was before Stan was replying:

‘I thought we were gonna have a rematch.’ 

‘Well, I’m tired of getting filleted,’ he shrugged. 

But neither of them wanted to get out of the water, and Richie, remembering how long it had taken to convince Eddie to join them in the first place, and seeing how happy and relaxed he seemed now, didn’t want to insist. He turned back on his own, listening to Eddie and Stan laugh behind him. 

Their little patch of weeds remained the same. First, Richie crouched by their pile of clothes and nicked a cigarette and lighter from the pocket of Beverly's jeans; then he looked inside the bag Eddie had used to gather their litter, fully basking in the fact that he was alone and free to be as much of an idiot as he wanted, and recovered the torn candy wrapper. It fit tightly in his fist while he laid on the dirt, head supported on a natural pillow of soft and warm grass, and lit the cigarette. _That_ was the only way summer was bearable: with the sunlight filtered through smoke and leaves. 

He hadn't been laying there for long when he heard splashing. Tilting his head just a little, he found Eddie waddling up to him. The others' voices were still far off to the left - he'd come alone. 

'You're smoking _again_?' Eddie said, trying to wave away the faint grey cloud. 

'Weird, isn't it? It's like it's addictive or something.'

Richie dropped his head back onto the grass. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Eddie, but rather that he was seeing far too much, and the much, no less, was wet all over, and glistening golden where the sunlight reflected from the droplets and miniscule rivers clinging to his skin. How very delicate he was, how very fierce: Richie's fucking poisoned dart, silver bullet, cyanide pill. It was too much to bear. So he wasn't looking, but he could still feel Eddie sitting down next to him. 

'You could have stayed with Stan,' Richie mumbled, feeling awful, stupid, like a damned jealous boyfriend. Except he wasn't even that, was he? He was a jealous _friend_ , clinging to all the little extremes of friendship, greedy for looks and attention, forbidden from anything else.

'I _did_. For a while,' Eddie replied. 

'Yeah. You want me to put out the cigarette?' 

'I… well, are you almost done?' 

'Here, I'll put it out.' 

' _No_! Leave it, Richie.' 

'Really?' he smirked. 'Oh I know what's happening: you went swimming right after eating and now you're a daredevil, Eds?'

'Shut up.'

Richie dared a sideways glance at Eddie. He was still sparkling gold, and his underwear was molded to his legs in the most obscene way possible… and he didn't look happy. His elbows were resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on the ground. He wasn't smiling. 

'Hey. I was just joking.' 

Eddie was silent, so Richie poked him gently on the leg. 

'You didn't die. You didn't even flop.' 

'No,' Eddie said, a little smile at last. 'Well, I _almost_ did, thanks to Bill and Beverly.'

'They'll kill us all one day, slit our throats with those fucking sticks.' 

Richie finished his cigarette, taking the care to blow the smoke away from Eddie, although he knew it did little good. The branches above them were rustling quietly, ahead a bird dove right into the water, resurfaced a second later with a fish in its beak. The water was beginning to dry off their skin. 

'Richie?' 

'Yeah, pickle?' 

'What's that in your hand?' 

'In my hand?' Richie repeated - and then realizing, swallowing dry, 'A piece of trash.'

'Oh,' Eddie said, sounding cautious. 'I thought I'd got it all.' 

‘The world is full of mysteries.’ 

Eddie made some inscrutable humming sound. Time stretched, awkward, Richie clenching the candy wrapper in his fist so tightly that the aluminium bit into his palm.

‘Richie?’

‘You sure are inquisitive today.’

‘That’s because you’re being fucking _weird_.’ 

‘I’m not!’ Richie denied. He hadn’t been _weirder_ than normal: he definitely hadn’t been more clingy, more pathetic, more in love than he’d always been. If anything, _Eddie_ was strange, hot and cold, vague insistences, unpredictable temperament. He went for another glimpse. A ray of sunlight was shining into his eyes, so he half covered them with his arm. Eddie was looking down at him cynically. 

‘Why’d you buy me that candy bar then?’ 

Well, it was good that his arm was shielding his vision, that the fear in his eyes might be somewhat hidden. 

‘You know, you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ he said lamely. 

‘What the _fuck_ does that mean?’

‘Have you seriously never heard that expression before?’ 

‘I don’t fucking know,’ Eddie started, stopped with a frustrated wave of his hand and a huff. ‘Chocolate and horses are very different. Why’d you get me _that_?’ 

And he pointed at Richie’s closed fist, he must have seen a glimpse of the plastic beforehand, recognized the colours, and Richie wanted to crawl somewhere dark and lonely, or dive deep into the river, or finally succumb to that persistent heat and burn into a crisp - anything to get him out of this conversation. He forced a smile, made an effort to look calm, drumming fingers on his bare chest, and reclining his head further on the soft grass.

‘You’re my friend.’ 

‘ _They_ are your friends too,’ Eddie countered, gesturing vaguely towards the river. 

‘Well, _they_ weren’t with me, were they?’ 

There was silence. Eddie looked thoughtful. He still didn’t look happy. It was a fucking disaster. After a moment, he nodded, lips tense, and began drawing abstract lines with one finger on the wet dirt. He didn’t seem in the mood to talk. Richie was eager to stir both their minds to other topics, to be _friendly_ again, easy, so he grasped for any flimsy, fucking minimally _tangible_ thought that came to his mind - and happening to find a little red mark on Eddie’s back, looking at it for a second, fondly, he didn’t even know why, he went for that. 

‘Your back is red.’ 

It worked, fortunately enough. Eddie’s eyes widened into spectacular circles. 

‘Red _how_?’ he shrieked. 

‘As in… the colour?’

‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ Eddie sighed, trying to turn his head enough to see the mark. ‘Is it like a sunburn?’ 

‘I don’t know. Did you get hit by the stick here?’ 

‘No,’ Eddie shook his head, then snapped it back towards Richie in terror, ‘Wait, why? Is it _swollen_?’ 

‘I don’t think so,’ Richie answered cautiously. 

‘Well, check!’ 

‘You mean… by touching it?’

Eddie looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

‘Do you… do you just _not_ have a brain?’

‘I take it that means yes,’ Richie still said tentatively. ‘You know, I just had to make sure… consent is important and all that… wouldn’t want a lawsuit on my hands.’ 

‘What the fuck are you on about?’ 

Richie laughed a little. He wasn’t sure himself. And he knew it was stupid, Eddie was his _friend_ and, besides, it was at most two inches of naked skin, nothing to it - and _still_ he felt greedy, fucking excited over it, and when he finally sat up and brought two fingers to the little spot of skin, still damp, around the side of Eddie’s torso, his touch was a light and reverent one. 

‘So?’

‘Hm?’ 

‘Oh my god, Richie, is it swollen or not? Is it inflamed? It doesn’t hurt.’ 

‘I…’ Richie trailed off, far too focused on the sight of his fingers gingerly brushing Eddie’s skin. He was so close, he could just clamp his hand around the side of his little waist, feel its warmth, sink his nails into the baby flesh and leave his own red marks. ‘I’m not sure. I should test it a little.’ 

‘Test it? This isn’t fucking rocket science, Richie.’ 

‘Do you want me to figure this out or not?’

Eddie sighed, leaning back with his palms digging into the dirt. Richie wondered how much disinfectant he would pour onto his hands later, if he even carried enough in his little fanny pack to satisfy him, and the thought filled him with an amused type of fondness, so he stroked a thumb through Eddie’s skin - and flinched, horrified out of habit - then remembering he _could_ , he did it again, brazen, gentle, venturing to inflict some pressure. He knew, he knew it very well, that it qualified as a bad touch: his pretexts were false, the skin wasn’t raised, only a pretty pink, he’d most likely been struck by the stick and didn’t remember; there was no reason to linger like he did; but Eddie usually allowed so little touch, only those strictly friendly and entirely fucking _insufficient_ gestures, a hand on the shoulder as a greeting, on the arm to guide him, sometimes a hug, always over clothes and even then accepted with some reluctance, so how could Richie remove himself from this opportunity, this previously forbidden and utterly glorious touch, intimate, warm, like Eddie might some day allow of some worthless girl? So he’d schemed a little to achieve it - he hadn’t schemed _too_ much. And since he was no demon, since those specific genes hadn’t passed on to him, his fingers wouldn’t stray from that permitted inch of skin. 

Still, he wanted to linger a little longer, and he could see Eddie fidgeting with impatience, so he tried to distract him with his own question, as Eddie had demanded too many of him 

‘Hey,’ he began, while tapping pointedly with a finger on the red skin. ‘What’s your deal with me smoking?’ 

Eddie craned his neck a bit to look back at him. His face was blank.

'There's no deal.' 

'Deal, thing, issue, problem, neurosis, what have you.'

'None of those either.' 

'Lying boys get coal for Christmas.' 

'I'm not lying!’ Eddie insisted, but his cheek was burning with shame. 

‘Come on. You got all mad earlier at the shop, _now_ you were adamant I couldn’t put the cigarette out. What is it?’ Richie urged. It wasn’t even just that: usually Eddie shrunk away from him when he smoked, now he was letting him touch him with his grimy nicotine hands - but Richie was too thankful for _that_ specific turn of events to risk bringing it to Eddie’s attention. Since Eddie wasn’t answering, he prodded him again, tender fingers digging into skin, and added softly, ‘I only want to do right by your respiratory system, Eds.’

Eddie huffed what might have been a laugh, but he hid it well. 

‘Don’t call me that.’ 

‘I won’t if you tell me.’ 

‘Now look who’s lying,’ Eddie rolled his eyes. Taking a good look at Richie, he shifted a little - Richie followed the movement eagerly, not wanting to ever lose contact, wondering if Eddie even _remembered_ he was touching him, if he cared, if he was allowed to keep stroking that delicate skin - before saying, ‘You won’t make fun of me?’

‘Scout’s honour.’ 

‘I shouldn’t have phrased it like a question. I mean: you _won’t_ make fun of me. Not unless you want your dead body in the river.’ 

Richie just nodded, quick, smitten. 

‘Alright. Okay. It’s just that… well, it _bothers_ me.’ 

‘Eddie, baby, that’s not the grand reveal you set it up to be.’

‘No, I mean…’ Eddie trailed off like he was searching for the right words. ‘It bothers me, or it bothered me _then_ , that you and Bev were smoking, you’re always together smoking, or, well, doing your _things_ …’

‘Like smoking?’

‘Like smoking, yeah. I don’t know, it bothers me that you’re always… and I can’t join in because… well, have you met me?’ Eddie smiled without humour, then immediately buried his face in his hands with a sort of whine. ‘Oh my god, Richie, I hate _everything_ about saying the truth.’

Richie just laughed softly, leaning forward so he could still see the side of Eddie’s cheek, the little glow of his left eye. 

‘You want to smoke?’

‘ _No_ ,’ Eddie muttered miserably.

‘You could have sat with us. We asked you to sit with us.’ 

‘I didn’t _want_ to sit with you two.’ 

‘Then I’m lost. What _do_ you want?’

‘I want to end this conversation.’

‘Tough shit. What do you want?’

‘I want- fuck, I _don’t_ want you to think that I’m… that I’m…’ Eddie cut himself off, he was struggling with whatever word he meant to say, he couldn’t slip it from his lips. He just looked, and looked, until suddenly it struck Richie, and he couldn’t help huffing a disbelieving laugh. 

‘That you’re lame?’ 

Eddie nodded, but he had stubborn eyes turned ahead, at the river and the willows. 

‘Eds,’ Richie coaxed, gentle, desperate to make him feel better, ‘How the fuck could you ever think that _I_ would think that? You’re my best friend. You’re my best everything.’ 

And Eddie looked at him, shocked, and Richie was regretting the words immediately, they were too vulnerable, too _true_ , but then that chocolate look flickered down, and Eddie shuddered a little breath and said:

‘You know, you’re still touching my back.’

Richie snapped his eyes down to where his hand rested. He wasn’t just touching like before: he’d become distracted, his whole palm was settled on the curve of Eddie’s skinny waist. Instinctively, he squeezed a little harder, sight going red at just how fucking _tiny_ Eddie looked under his hand. He bet it’d be no problem at all to push him up against a tree, to clamp his fingers on each side of Eddie’s waist, lift him into the air and kiss and bite at his neck. - and throughout it all Eddie would only be able to cling to Richie’s neck, whine at every touch, beg into Richie’s ear for him not to leave too many marks, that the others would see...

‘I know,’ he answered, low and cautious.

‘You could have stopped a while ago.’

‘You could have told me to stop.’

‘Technically, I think I did,’ Eddie pointed out. He was speaking just as softly as Richie.

‘Oh. Then I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ Eddie shook his head. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Yeah?’ Richie murmured. This… _this_ couldn’t be what it seemed to be, and yet it felt so much like it was, it was unreal, it was a dream, too sweet, and Eddie’s eyes were open wide, _unsure_ , and he hadn’t evaded his touch, no, he was _there_ , and he was shifting closer…

‘Guys! Could you get me my clothes, please?!' 

Before Richie could even process Mike's voice, Eddie had jerked away like he'd been burnt, sitting stock still for a second, pointedly not looking at Richie, then standing and making for the pile of clothes.

'Here you go, Mike,' Eddie handed him his shirt, soft-spoken, and Mike grinned warmly as he shook himself like a wet dog, his feet still underwater. Richie just sat there, stunned. He could still _feel_ Eddie's skin under his fingers; he could still see that angelic face so near his; he could still believe that _something_ was about to happen; something impossible, yes, ridiculous, magic, Richie knew how fucking _unlikely_ it was, how fucking delusional he must be to seriously entertain the thought that Eddie and he were about to _kiss_ \- but weren't they? With the willows shielding them from view and the sun lighting them gold, and his hand firm on Eddie's waist, what could that tilting of heads mean other than a kiss? 

It was nothing. It was nothing, even if it could have been something, because the fact remained that _nothing_ had happened. Reality prevailed. Mike had been sent as a cosmic agent to correct the impending mistake, to remove Richie's greedy hands from the nymph that was Eddie Kaspbrak. And Eddie had gratefully seized the opportunity, slipping from his grasp. _That_ was the very definition of nothing. 

He couldn't be brought to speak much for the rest of the afternoon. There was no joy in him. He'd made the decision already, dark and shitty and he didn't care, that he'd steal another cigarette from Beverly - and til then he was only wasting time, sitting there with the others, barely forcing a laugh when a laugh was expected, and glancing at Eddie at least every minute, to see him smile and talk like nothing had happened, get dressed like his little lithe body shouldn't be fucking sculpted in marble, and later scrub his hands clean with the most endearing crease between his eyebrows and the most graceful finicky fingers, like he didn't _mean_ to torture Richie. 

There was one highlight. They were saying their goodbyes, they were going their separate ways - Richie planned to skulk around the forest a bit, til the others were out of sight, and then slip back and kill time at the greenhouse - and Eddie was talking to Bill, and laughing, and suddenly Richie felt angry, or rather confused in a furious way, and he tugged Eddie by the wrist. 

'You wanna hang out again tomorrow? Here, same time? Just… just the two of us,' he'd whispered it all in a hurry, and once he was done he released Eddie like his skin had burnt. 

But he needn't have been so worried, because Eddie simply smiled, the littlest little smile, and nodded. His mouth was curving like he might speak, and Richie was fucking dying for those words, that he might agonize over their tone and meaning afterwards, but then Bill was claiming Eddie's attention again. 

They all parted ways. Richie leaned against a tree, clothes clinging to his damp skin and wet hair dripping onto his shoulders, and lit his stolen cigarette. It was summer: there was hope for all things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to answer every comment, so if you want to chat about the fic and the fandom I'm all eyes and ears and lightning speed thumbs <3
> 
> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451.


	4. The Attic, The River

From Beverly’s bedroom window, outlooking the forest, peeked one head of bright red and another of black curls. Enveloping the two was a cloud of smoke. 

‘You have to stop stealing my shit.’ 

‘I have to stop stealing _everyone’s_ shit,’ Richie sighed. ‘You’re not so special, Miss Beverly.’ 

'If Eddie asked you'd stop.'

'Yeah, but if Eddie asked I'd also pulverize the moon with my teeth, so...' 

‘Then stop stealing _our_ shit,’ Beverly rolled her eyes. ‘Mind you, you can _have_ it, just fucking ask first.’ 

‘You know I can’t ask _t_ _hem_.’ 

‘Why the fuck not?’

‘Because then they’d know I’m _homeless_ , Bev. A fucking cast-off, a forest hermit, a reject nothing left in the dirt.’ 

‘And _you_ know they wouldn’t care. We don’t care, Richie: we’re the fucking _Losers_ ,’ she said. A little smirk crossed her lips. ‘You’re just embodying the title a little better than us.’ 

Richie snorted and took the cigarette from her fingers. Next he spoke, a burst of smoke followed his words.

‘Incidentally, can I borrow one of your shirts?’

Beverly sighed, but she knew the urgency of the situation and nodded. Richie had already used her shower, and enlisted her help in - unsuccessfully - taming his hair; but his shirts were a disgrace, worn from excessive use and creased from sleeping on the ground of the greenhouse, and there were stains, suspiciously coloured stains, which no amount of scraping and rubbing could remove. He was meeting Eddie in under an hour. He was going to look good for Eddie, washed, _clean_ , so there might be the slimmest, fucking infinitesimal chance that what had happened the day before, or _almost_ happened, would happen again. 

He bounded up to her wardrobe, looking for a shirt that fit him. Beverly was still leaning on the windowsill, finishing off their cigarette, but she turned her head to watch him. 

‘You know you should say something.’ 

‘Popular opinion disagrees. I should always shut the fuck up.’ 

‘I _mean_ you should tell the others. They can help more than I do. You could even crash at their house.’ 

‘That is, until their parents asked _my_ parents why I was sleeping on their couch, and they realized they had a _devil_ in their midst.’ 

‘I know it’s difficult to believe there’s tolerant parents out there - _I_ find it difficult to believe - but it’s still true. Bill’s parents wouldn’t care. Mike’s and Ben’s wouldn’t either.’ 

Richie just shrugged. He was taking a wine coloured shirt off its hanger. He wondered if Eddie would like the colour. 

‘You don’t give him any credit, you know?’ Beverly said suddenly, startling Richie out of his thoughts. He looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘Eddie. That’s why you’re not telling anyone. You’re in love with Eddie, and you’re sure he’ll reject you if he finds out you’re homeless.’ 

The shirt was twisted in his hands. He was not looking at it, and he was not looking at her: he was in his own mind, picturing Eddie’s smile, his dimples, his freckles, the litany of pills in his fanny pack. 

‘The boy is terrified of _dirt_ , Bev,’ he said eventually. ‘How do you think he’d feel if he knew I sleep on it?’

‘He’d get angry, like Eddie does, and then he’d fix it. I think he might even hide you under his bed, his mother be damned. And I’m sure you’d love that.’

Richie was about to reply with some quip, when suddenly a dull sound came from the depths of the house. Instinctively, he looked at the closed bedroom door and clung to the shirt tighter - and when he turned to Beverly again he found her an inch from him, gripping his wrist, leading him out the room and through the dark corridor. 

‘My father’s home,’ she whispered in a blank tone. ‘You’re going through _that_ door, that’s his room, and you’re going into the closet and using the hatch up to the attic. Hide there. Don’t make a fucking sound, Richie.’ 

She pushed him into the room, closed the door in his face. Richie was struck for a moment, he turned to stare at the slab of wood: he heard two voices, one heavy, hoarse, words that scraped on a rotten throat; and Beverly’s, butter smooth, so used to lying, not a hitch, not a nerve; and with that he jostled awake, he was skittering into the closet, pulling the hatch open as silently as possible, taking the ladder up into Beverly’s attic. 

It was a dark, dirty, disgusting little place. The ceiling was short and vaulted - Richie couldn’t stand to his full height. There were boxes, and all the boxes were strung together by spiderwebs. There was one window, barely a window, a strip close to the ground, covered in a dense layer of dust, that allowed only the shyest ray of sunlight. He sat close to it, hugged the shirt to his chest, seeking to preserve it from all the filth, and he waited. And waited. And waited to hear that maggot voice storm right under him, floorboards creaking with the obscenities shouted underneath, and then quiet, a disturbing quiet, and minutes later what might be some loud snoring. 

Beverly had told him her father hadn’t spent the night: that surely he’d been drinking, face down in a ditch, and that he shouldn’t be home til night, maybe he wouldn’t come at all. It seemed he’d come to crash in his own bed. Richie might have faith in the strength of alcoholic comas, but surely not enough to risk climbing down the ladder until Beverly herself came to get him. 

He settled back with a sigh. His mind, like it always did, strayed to Eddie. Eagerness alone could not describe his feelings for seeing him again: eagerness fell short of the consuming need of it, a psychological itch tricking his skin, making him scratch at his arms, fiddle with his hair. He’d been aching to see him ever since they’d parted ways at the forest, Eddie’s eyes not even on him, so they might linger like a sweet kiss, but brimming with admiration for Bill, drinking in _his_ profile and _his_ words; and Richie had settled back in the greenhouse and killed time reading a book he’d stolen from his house and daydreaming about Eddie. He wasn’t proud of it, the extent of his obsession, its influence over his mind - still he was helpless to it. He couldn’t go over twenty minutes without a thought, a wondering, a musing: and if he entertained these, then more would follow, dark fantasies would cling to him. That night he’d dreamt of sweat and heat, little Eddie whining under him, him thrusting his hips harder against that peachy little ass he’d been worshipping since he could remember, and making sure he was Eddie’s entire world, the only thing he needed and wanted, the person he loved best in his fucking life; and when Beverly had joked that he’d loved to be hidden under Eddie’s bed, Richie had had half a mind to tell her, just to get it out there, to finally show the truth of his desperate and perverted mind, that he’d fantasized about the opposite, back when he had a bed: he’d dreamt of keeping Eddie there, in his bedroom always, listening to his records or rolling around in bed, greeting Richie with a kiss, body soft and bare for him, and not a thought of other people above Richie, not a single wish to leave. This is what he pictured, when jealousy and despair ate at him. This is what comforted him, when he sat in the greenhouse, watching the fluttering of the branches against the glass ceiling. 

He’d woken with a particularly burning urge to see Eddie. And now his only hope was that he might be let out in time to meet him. He couldn’t stand him up. Not after whatever the fuck had happened by the river. No, Richie was going to be there on time, freshly showered like he _never_ was now, with his hair brushed, his tongue wisely guarded and his behaviour fucking _muzzled_ , and he was going to talk to Eddie alone and maybe ask him, or hint to it, or otherwise just stare at him with that desperate look he knew he had until Eddie fucking _got_ it… yes, even if he had to break the casement of that ridiculous little window and slip out, he’d be there. 

It was a dream, of course. He couldn’t fit through the window: even if he could, the fall would be three floors. But he entertained it while he sat there in the dark. That hour passed, he was sure of it, he denied it anyway. He was optimistic. More time went by, and he was still hoping, still clinging to that shirt. 

There was sound at last. A series of clicks, little knocks: light flashed through, the hatch was opened, Beverly peered through. He was too unsure to speak, he only stared.

‘Fucking _move_ , Richie,’ she whispered at last, and he complied. Her father’s bedroom was empty, Beverly ushered him out into the hall. They seemed to be alone. 

‘You okay?’ he asked. 

‘Great, Richie.’ 

‘You don’t want to talk about it?’ 

Beverly just gave him a look before gesturing at the shirt in his hands. He put it on quickly and threw the other one under her bed. 

‘How long was I up there?’ 

‘About an hour and a half.’ 

‘Fuck. _Fuck_.’ 

He rushed to her front door - and he was about to run out without a word, when suddenly he turned, she was standing under the doorframe, he touched her arm. 

‘You know I’d kill him for you, right?’ 

Beverly’s smile was a strange little thing. 

‘I don’t know if you’re joking or not. I don’t know which one I prefer.’ 

They hugged, only a brief moment before he ran towards the forest. _He_ didn’t know if he was serious or not. But he did feel like, if ever should Beverly decide which one she preferred, he’d promptly do what she asked. 

He got to the river in less than ten minutes. It was even hotter than the day before: running under that unforgiving sun had left him sweating and panting, and he leaned against a tree, curled under its shadow, to catch his breath. The spot was the exact same where they’d eaten the other afternoon. The willows, the little patch of yellow weeds, the slight curve of the peaceful river, they were unchanged. There was no Eddie. But there were footprints, dug very softly into the dirt, little footprints for little feet. Eddie ought to have waited, pacing around, then left. How could Richie have thought that Eddie Kaspbrak, the most impatient person in existence, would have waited ten minutes for _him_ , let alone an hour and a half?

He meant to turn around, to do what he didn’t know, to retreat to the greenhouse like the fucking loser he was and waste the day by like he’d wasted Eddie’s time, when he heard laughter. Just the suggestion of it, enough to whip his head back towards the river; and he stepped closer to the river edge, peeking beyond the willows, to find three shapes in the water: Bill, Georgie and Eddie. 

The three were huddled together, keeping themselves afloat with lazy arms, speaking, Richie couldn’t hear well, and _smiling_ , that he could see perfectly, smiling wide and bright. He felt sick, he felt fucking furious: and it was _his_ fault, he had been late, and Bill ought to have felt some supernatural fucking tug in his pure golden heart, that princess Eddie was alone and disappointed, and he’d come with his adorable little brother to save the day. From that angle in the river bank, Richie was confident they wouldn’t see him, and so he lurked. He looked his fill at all that joy that could have been _his_ if only he’d been there on time, and once he was angry enough, sight blurred red, fists clenched, he walked out - but in doing so he left the cover of the willow, and heard immediately a scream: 

‘Richie! Is that you?!’ 

It was Georgie, that was the worst of it. Instinct forced him to answer to that sweet little kid’s voice. He plastered on a smile, as fake as possible, and waved shortly. Soon Bill and Eddie turned towards him, their joy fell, they were all surprise, and Eddie, of course, anger. 

‘What the fuck, Richie?!’ was both their reaction, before they began swimming up to the river edge. Richie fitted his hands in his pockets, mostly so he wouldn’t do anything rash with them, and waited for the two boys to step onto the bank. They were stripped to their underwear, of course, running hands through wet hair, digging toes between weeds and dirt, and Richie’s jealousy at that moment wasn’t even comprehensible, simply a flash of resentment that _Bill_ got to be next to Eddie like this, _see_ him like this, and have Eddie look at him like he hung the moon himself. He was fit too, _his_ body was the one that might inspire any fucking miraculous shred of homosexuality in Eddie, not Richie’s lanky and pale form - and Richie remembered that moment the day before, Eddie’s words, “you look like…”, how he’d gone a little red and said no more, and he hated himself for even _hoping_ , for condescending to believe Eddie might ever prefer him when Bill Denbrough was in existence. 

Bill _was_ his friend. Granted, sometimes Richie hated him more than anything else in the world, but he was still his friend. That’s why Richie didn’t punch him then, in front of Georgie. 

Instead he looked at Eddie. 

‘I’m late.’

‘No shit you’re late,’ Eddie bit out. He’d crossed his arms, his flaming little eyes raked over Richie from under pinched eyebrows. ‘What’s up with your shirt?’ 

Richie looked down at himself. The wine coloured shirt was all creased from having been curled in his lap while he waited in the attic. He looked like a wreck. 

'Fell asleep,' he shrugged tersely, swallowing his anger and embarrassment. Then, affecting that same easygoing smile, he asked, 'So, Bill, why are you and little Georgie here?' 

'We went for a swim,' Bill said, 'I t-t-told you guys I was hanging out with him. Didn't kn-know you'd be here too.' 

'Apparently Richie didn't either,' Eddie jabbed. 

'I fell asleep!'

'You knew we were supposed to meet!' 

'Do you not know what falling asleep is?' 

'Fuck you.' 

'Eddie!' Bill cautioned, nodding towards Georgie, who still only looked on with an innocent grin and, turning to Richie, pulled at his ruined shirt. 

'Will you play with us, Richie?' 

'He's too tired to play,' said Eddie. Although his voice, for Georgie's benefit, was mild, his gaze had something of steel to it.

But Richie couldn't _leave_ for two reasons: he couldn't endure the thought of having Eddie this mad at him, especially when their last meeting had promised such strange, unbelievable hope; and that dark instinct roused within him at the prospect of Bill and Eddie being there alone in their current shirtless and glistening selves, laughing and talking and _staring_ with only innocent Georgie as a third wheel. So he widened his fake smile even further, making Eddie glare. 

'I'm not tired at all, Eddie my love. Just woke up, remember? I'm fresh as a fucking daisy.' 

Georgie smiled, and no one could say no to Georgie. The three already undressed returned to the water, Eddie terse, averting Richie’s eye, and Bill somewhat confused. While Richie undressed as well - that fucking shirt he threw violently onto the floor - he wondered how much Eddie had told Knight Denbrough. How much he _thought_ there was to tell. If he’d simply insulted Richie for being late; if he’d been hurt, if he’d been looking forward to the meeting even half as much as Richie; if he thought the meeting _was_ important, the continuation of whatever the fuck they’d almost done the day before, or if he thought it a casual hangout. 

Being there, it turned out, did not mean being with Eddie. Apparently, it meant splashing water at Georgie a whole lot. He was _trying_ to engage Eddie, he orbited towards him every single minute, quipped and remarked and looked at him in expectation, and Eddie would be speaking to Bill. And should Bill be the one occupied with Georgie for a moment, and Richie seize the opportunity to swim next to Eddie, relishing in the little closeness, and try to strike up a conversation, Eddie would dive underwater right before he could get out a word. At first, he could accept it as punishment: then half an hour passed, and the constant tease of Eddie’s presence and _coldness_ chipped at him, he wanted to grab him and shake him, his dream from that night came back to him, Eddie moaning under him, forced to look only at _him_ , to ask _him_ for what he needed… and he had to take a solitary lap through the river’s width, letting the water cool his thoughts. 

At a certain point, he knew to swallow his pride. He couldn’t endure Eddie’s aloofness another second without resorting to something drastic and likely traumatic to poor Georgie’s eyes. He bounded up to Bill the moment he could get him alone, and asked if he could disappear with Georgie for a little while. 

‘Why?’ Bill said with a frown. 

‘I want to apologize to Eddie.’

‘You haven’t d-done it already?’

Richie clenched his jaw. He wanted to say he’d _wanted_ to, he’d _tried_ to, but Eddie had been too busy worshipping Bill, too content ignoring Richie’s entire existence. 

‘He won’t let me.'

‘Okay,’ Bill said. He was still frowning, he didn’t look too convinced. 'I’ll t-t-t-take Georgie to the bank.’ 

They went, the two Denbroughs, sliding through the water; and since Richie was between them and Eddie, he could intercept him when he made to follow his hero. 

‘Eddie-’ he began softly, but Eddie just kept swimming past him, so Richie reached a desperate hand out to clasp Eddie’s wrist. It surprised him, and as Richie lifted his arm a bit too forcefully the rest of him dove briefly into the water. He came out sputtering, glaring at Richie with all his might. 

‘You _asshole_!’

‘Just listen to-’

‘Get off, I’ll drown!’

‘Hold my arm then,’ said Richie, stubborn, because Eddie _could_ touch him, they were fucking friends if nothing less, and Eddie would have been all too glad to cling to anyone else. ‘Just hold on, I won't let you fucking drown.’ 

Eddie seemed about to argue, but he must have seen in Richie’s eye that he wasn’t about to release his wrist, so he sighed and let himself be led closer to the margin. Soon Richie could stand on the riverbed, while Eddie was still straining to keep his chin above water.

‘I forgot you’re the size of a fucking fairy,’ Richie commented, almost to himself, and Eddie glared. 

‘Are you gonna stop being a dick now?’

‘Are you gonna stop ignoring me?’ 

‘Well, I guess I _have_ to,’ Eddie huffed, looking pointedly at where Richie’s hand still clasped onto his wrist. Richie let go, albeit reluctantly, and tried to get his thoughts in order, tried to forget how good it had felt to have Eddie a bit pliant for once.

‘You didn’t let me explain why I was late,’ he began eventually.

‘You did explain. You fell _asleep_ ,’ Eddie retorted, his eyes laden with judgement. 

‘So why are you still pissed off?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Of course, you’re just being a fucking ice princess for fun.’ 

‘Shut up,’ Eddie hissed; but then he sighed, his anger seeming to subside for a minute, and he looked around them. ‘If we’re talking about this I want to get some fucking clothes on.’ 

They swam to the bank in a tense silence. Bill and Georgie were there, idly poking sticks into wet dirt. At hearing them come closer, Bill snapped his head up in alarm. He looked at once surprised and worried. 

‘Are you g-guys leaving?’

‘No,’ Richie said cheerily, at the same time as Eddie said, ‘Maybe.’ He was stomping over to their pile of clothes, shrugging into his shirt. It immediately began to cling to his wet skin, moulding to his little torso, circling his cherry nipples. Richie stood transfixed for a moment, drinking in the sight. 

‘So…’ Bill interrupted. ‘Should we go back t-t-to the river?’ 

‘We’d sure appreciate it,’ Richie said quickly, before Eddie could get a word in. Of course, Eddie glared, but at least the Denbroughs obeyed, leaving them alone again. 

Suddenly tongue-tied, or rather nervous of what would come out when he _did_ unleash his tongue, Richie busied himself fishing his own shirt from the pile. It was now a creased mess of dirt and water. Beverly would be delighted. 

He looked up to find Eddie staring stonily. 

‘Isn’t that shirt Beverly’s?’

‘Huh, yeah.’ 

‘You fell asleep at Beverly’s?’ 

‘I guess so.’

‘So what were you doing at Beverly’s?’

‘You’ll wear her name out,’ Richie huffed a lame laugh. _This_ was why Eddie had been mad the other day as well - how the fuck could he feel neglected as a friend? How could he think Richie liked Beverly best? He’d told him, hadn’t he? - words heavy in his throat, that he was his best damn _everything_. 

But Eddie didn’t seem to believe him. He seemed about to explode, the little wildfire, molotov, trigger trail.

‘If you were going to hang out with Beverly, you shouldn’t have made plans with me,’ he said sulkily. Richie wanted to kiss away his frown. 

‘I wasn’t hanging out, I just passed by.’ 

‘And then put on one of her shirts and went the fuck to _sleep_? What, in her bed?’

Richie took a cautious step forward, very very curious over Eddie’s outrage. 

‘Would that be a problem?’

‘No! No, Richie, it’s not a fucking problem,’ Eddie bit out, taking that corresponding step backwards. It made Richie twitch, made him want to close the distance entirely. ‘Do you know what _is_ the problem? Do you know _why_ I’m mad?’

‘I think I’ve got an idea.’ 

‘No, you don’t. You’re fucking stupid and you have no idea whatsoever. I’m mad because you were two hours late and you came _here_. You thought I’d just wait for you? I’d just stay _here_ , while you were hanging with Bev-’

‘You were hanging with Bill!’ 

‘How the fuck is that related?! _You_ didn’t show up!’

‘What should I have done, just given up the moment I knew I was late?’

‘You should have been here on time.’

‘Well fuck, Eds, “should” is all very fine and dandy in the land of the imaginary, but we live in the real fucking world!’ 

‘ _Don’t_ call me that.’

The two of them were shouting, they were above the sounds of the river, the willows, the birds. Having stopped to breathe for a moment, however, Richie could feel his nerves ebb a little. He wasn’t _mad_ at Eddie: he was only frustrated, pent up from having been ignored for so long, and disappointed that all his dreams for the day had been ruined; and Eddie had done nothing but be his perfect little bundle of impatience, and _his_ anger was about Beverly, about Richie not preferring him, not prioritizing him, whatever fucking _delusion_ he was clinging to, and Richie could very well show him, by no effort at all other than being _honest_ , that he had no reason to be mad. 

Besides, these little unexpected tokens in Eddie’s behaviour… the way he’d let Richie keep his hand on his waist the day before, how he blanched now at the thought of Richie falling asleep on Beverly’s bed… the first one could have been pity, realizing how much of a pathetic lovesick dog Richie was and throwing him a bone, but this _second_ one, wouldn’t it be how Richie might react if he, in turn, heard that Eddie had slept on Bill’s bed? Couldn’t it imply the same feelings? A fraction of them? Maybe Eddie didn’t even understand them, but Richie had both the chance and the wish to make them blossom, and he’d found their name since the first week of knowing Eddie.

‘Look, Eddie, just… well, first of all, stop making that face, like what I’m about to say is gonna be absolute trash, and _listen_. Listen, alright?’ 

‘There’s a reason we call you Trashmouth,’ Eddie muttered, making Richie snort in spite of himself. But he did settle down in wait, and Richie sighed in relief.

‘I wanted to come here. Fuck, I _asked_ you to be here, of course I wanted to be here. Being late was an accident, okay? And trust me, I wish I’d left Beverly’s as soon as possible. It was all nothing. I’m really sorry I was late.’ 

Eddie breathed, a great shuddering thing, like anger was seeping away from him. He wasn’t one for giving in so easy, however. He knew he’d been mad, and he liked to withhold forgiveness; so he tensed his lips, and looked away, and very unconvincingly said:

‘Whatever.’ 

Richie smiled, amused. The battle was as good as won. He glimpsed out at the left curve of the river, wherein the golden brothers had disappeared. 

‘So… I _am_ here now, Eds. All yours. We could still hang out, if you want.’ 

‘I guess. Let’s go back to Bill and Georgie.’ 

‘No. No. I mean, I… wasn’t the plan that we were gonna hang out just the two of us?’ 

‘ _Yeah_ ,’ Eddie was back to looking annoyed. ‘But the original plan went to shit.’ 

‘Not necessarily,’ Richie insisted. He wanted to get that day back on track. His shirt might be in shambles, the careful work Beverly had done on his hair destroyed by the water and, of course, there was that great fucking two hours delay hovering over their heads, but if only they were _alone_ then they could still discuss what needed to be discussed, and maybe finish what had been interrupted the other afternoon. Besides, he was itching to get Eddie to himself. To hold his attention and make him laugh until he forgot every single joke Bill had told that day. 

‘What about Bill?’

‘We’ll ditch him,’ Richie shrugged, hiding his eagerness.

‘We can’t ditch Bill!’

‘Ah, of course, not _Bill_ ,’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, shortcake, it’s fine, he’s got his brother anyway.’ 

‘Exactly,’ Eddie frowned. ‘Georgie will be sad if we leave.’ 

‘So if Georgie weren’t here, you’d ditch Bill with me?’ 

‘Do you have brain damage, Richie? Of course I wouldn’t ditch Bill. Do you want to go or stay here by yourself?’ 

The rest of the afternoon was another sort of punishment. Granted, Eddie might be talking to him now, sometimes even laughing, gracing him with that dimpled smile of his, but that was only when he wasn’t doing the same to _Bill_. It wasn’t fair, they’d argued and now they ought to have the chance to make up properly, to devote their attention to each other and relieve all the past tension, without pesky third wheels stealing half the joy for themselves. At least that was Richie’s stance - Eddie didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t itch for Richie. And he didn’t seem so disappointed that their plan hadn’t worked. Meanwhile, Richie could think of little else. It got so bad, he’d felt anger so close under his skin, lurking and simmering, that he had to leave. He said his parents knew he was going to the river, so they didn’t want him gone for too long - almost laughing at the absolute _lie_ of it - and made his way a bit through the forest, before turning sharply towards the greenhouse. And he hated leaving Eddie and Bill alone, he wanted to turn back with each step, break up their fucking giggling, but he knew he’d do something rash and rude, and he didn’t think it wise to have another fight with Eddie so soon. So he returned to the greenhouse alone, weary, twisting fingers into that ragged blanket of his, and sitting to stare blankly through the grass. 

From the back of his table fort, between his pillow and duffel-bag, he took out a trash bag. Inside was his stash, almost complete: the devious shame that had gotten him kicked out. Pictures of Eddie, every one that he’d been able to collect throughout the years. Eddie unaware, back or profile while Richie scrambled for the polaroid machine; Eddie posing half shy and half impatience; Eddie tucked under the arms of other Losers. He had two, his favourites, of Eddie and himself. In one, Eddie was kneeling while fiddling with Richie’s record player, and Richie stood with a grin and a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. Mike had taken that one. In the other, they were sitting on the red couch in Bill’s basement, Richie had an arm around the back of it, softly pillowing Eddie’s head, Eddie was looking somewhere to the side, Richie remembered precisely at what - Stan had found some strange liquid in a cupboard, he’d taken a sip, it was vodka, he’d spit it all out - while Richie had his face so gingerly turned to Eddie, his nose grazing his hair, looking down with stupid affection. Beverly had taken that one. Richie suspected that was when she’d known. 

If miracles should exist, then Richie fully believed it a miracle that his parents hadn’t burnt his little secret. The porn magazine and the bottle of lotion were also there, but he hardly touched them now. He just liked looking at the pictures. Tracing Eddie’s outline. Taking his time enjoying that smile, without worrying it might disappear. 

The Losers were supposed to meet all together at the end of the afternoon. He ditched them. Instead, given that the summer sun was still out, and would there remain for a couple of hours, he took some of his shirts down to the river. He had a bar of soap, though it was running thin, and a bare slab of rock protruding from where the bank rose sharply into the mass of trees proved a great place to spread the soaked fabric and wash it. They didn’t look too bad, in the end. Some of the more stubborn stains had persevered, but Richie hoped they wouldn’t be too noticeable. That Eddie wouldn’t notice. 

In a moment he was collecting some of the shirts to soak them again, the other he was alarmed by a rustling of leaves. There was nothing in the tree line, however; not even a breeze, every branch hung perfectly still; he was about to turn around - he heard the sound again. It was closer, he ought to _see_ what it was… someone came up from behind the trees. 

'What have you got there, Tozier?' asked Henry Bowers, watching with a cold face. 

'Nothing,' Richie hurried to say, hiding the shirts behind him. 

' _Something_. Show it to me.’ 

Richie shook his head faintly, hiding it behind him. 

‘Show it to me or I’ll tear it off you.’ 

And he was stepping forward, sure feet one in front of the other like a lion or a tiger, and Richie, who knew very well that he was human, that he was _civilized_ , also knew there came times when he must be a rabbit: he turned and ran, hip-hopping over bush and bramble, dodging trees and kicking rocks, wet fabric dripping down his forearms. But Henry Bowers was fast, he’d always been fast, no one could lose him; and he was savage, he did not get tired; and if his eye lingered on someone, if that violent whim of his chose to sing, a skull would be bruised and battered - sooner or later. Richie lost. At least he didn’t trip. He could take pride in that. His defeat was one of speed. Henry Bowers advanced quick, _he_ advanced a quick too slow, he was doomed. Bowers caught the back of his shirt with a sound that came from the rumbles of a rotten chest, and Richie was whipped back and made to stop. 

‘Shit, _fuck_ … you never… fuck, you never skip leg day, do you, Bowers?’ Richie panted, while the bully ripped the shirts from his arms. His fingers recoiled at touching them. He snarled. 

‘What the fuck, Tozier?’ 

‘They’re your mother’s bedsheets. Had to wash them after-’

Bowers backhanded Richie without quite looking at him. He was more interested in turning the fabric in his hands. When he figured it out, however, he was eager to snap his eyes back up and trace the red mark he’d left.

‘Washing your shirts in the river, Tozier? Why would that be?’

‘Saves water and electricity,’ Richie replied, but it was murmured, he had no energy, and when Bowers shifted he winced. 

‘A lot of shirts in here,’ he went on. He had a slight frown, he was thinking. Richie could see it was all coming together in his mind, it was clear in the cruel sharpening of his eyes. There was nothing more terrifying in the world than a clever bully. ‘I _think_ you have nowhere else to wash them. Mommy and Daddy kicked you out, Tozier? Found out how much of a fucking worthless shit you are?’ 

Richie just stared on flatly. He had no outrage in him: it _was_ quite the accurate guess. But his skin still burnt, not only from the sting of what had happened but from the expectation of what _would_ happen, and if Bowers knew then he might tell, begin these nasty little rumours, share Richie’s secret with all of Derry. Fear thrummed in him, he wanted to run away again; he wanted to slip from those savage fingers; and anger bubbling up, from now and from _before_ , from all the frustration of that day, all the problems of his _life_ , he cocked an arm and punched Bowers. 

Right cheek, same as where he’d been backhanded. Richie had left his own red mark. He had one second to appreciate it before he was pushed down to the dirt. 

The onslaught of blows was no surprise. He’d been kicked by Bowers often. He knew to cover his head, curl his body and hope for the best. Most importantly, he knew not to talk. He wasn’t so stupid - not always. Bowers had his fun, said his insults, coloured his bruises. When he was done, he drew that smile, that maggot smile he only ever showed when he’d made someone bleed, and picked out the shirts which had fallen on the forest ground. He said something, Richie couldn’t tell what from the ringing in his ears, and left. Eventually, when he was sure he was alone, when everything in his body had settled into a quiet pain, Richie sat up. The shirts were nowhere to be seen. 

Richie brushed dirt and twigs from his clothes. For a moment, he imagined how it might sound if he were to crush every single bone in Bowers’s hands, one by one, deep in the forest where no one else could hear. Then he sighed. He’d have to wash the shirt he was wearing now before he returned it to Beverly: dirt was one thing, but blood was not so easy to explain. And as to the clothes he’d lost… he wouldn’t think of it. It wasn’t so bad. He wouldn’t have had the patience to wash them again anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451.


	5. Night Comes

‘I’m not playing with you anymore.’ 

‘Oh come on!’

‘ _I’m not playing with you anymore_.’

And to mark his point, Stan threw his cards down, so they slid across the coffee table towards Richie. They were back at Bill’s basement, it was after dinner; and gathered in a circle on the carpet, they were on their fifth round of poker, using Stan’s treasured deck of cards and Bill’s penny collection as chips. 

‘You’re no fun,’ Richie complained. 

‘I’m an honest player!’

‘You’re a whiny little bitch, you mean.’

‘Can you st-st-s-top swearing in front of Georgie?’ 

‘I don’t mind,’ Georgie said with an angel’s little smile. Even _he_ had won more chips than Richie - so what if he’d glimpsed at a few hands to protect his pride?

But Stan was serious, he was too competitive to let it slide; while Ben also had his wise thoughts about Richie’s schemes; so, to preserve the peace, they collected all the cards, gathered all the pennies, and decided everyone was tied in first place except for Richie, who was in eighth. Then posed the question: what would they do next? 

‘We can play Air Charter,’ suggested Beverly. 

‘Oh god no,’ whined Eddie. 

‘Yeah,’ Richie broke into an amused smirk. ‘Eddie hates airplanes with a _passion_.’

‘You’d cheat if we played anyway.’ 

‘For fuck’s sake, Stan, will you fucking let it go?!’

While they argued, Bill stood and wandered off to the other corner of the basement. The lights were warm and dim: Richie couldn’t quite see what he was doing. But he took the opportunity to crawl across the circle and take Bill’s place, which was to the direct left of Eddie. He answered his questioning gaze with a grin. 

‘If we play Air Charter you can be on my team.’ 

‘No, thanks.’ 

‘Come on! I’d do all the work!’ 

‘Then why would you even want me on your team?’ Eddie asked with a frown half amusement and half confusion, like Richie was an idiot. ‘Anyway, can’t we play a game I _actually_ like? Preferably that doesn’t include the fucking boredom of _pretending_ to be air-freight companies?’ 

‘It’s riveting gameplay, my little Eds. Says so right there on the box.’ 

‘And we _have_ to trust the box.’ 

‘That’s my motto, yes.’ 

Richie was about to throw an arm around Eddie - for the sake of pure _friendliness_ \- when the Losers all started at the sudden sound of music. Bill came out of the shadowed corner with a little smile and a record slip in his hands.

‘Better than g-g-games.’

The excitement was shared by all, and Eddie, standing at once, sneaked from Richie’s eager arm. He joined the other Losers, they were moving closer to the record player, stretching limbs, cracking spines and smiling lazily. There could be no cheating in dancing: Stan must be over the moon. Richie, on his part, sighed and replaced the carpet for the plush red sofa. Beverly and Mike both insisted he should go dance as well, Mike even seemed tempted to pull him up by the arm, but Richie denied them firmly - he was tired, his head hurt, he didn’t like the song. In truth, his body was still bruised and sore from Henry Bower’s little stunt a few days before. He hadn’t shared that with anyone, however, so the lame excuses persisted. They all left him eventually, they were swaying and laughing on one side of the basement, he was lounging on the other: each side was lit by one dim yellow lamp, in the middle reigned a stripe of shadow. 

It was pleasant, the privacy. Propping his head up on the armrest, he could almost doze off. Clever plucking of guitar strings filled his ears; a grave voice settled in his bones, lodging there, a shifting weight; and through his half-closed eyelids he could follow the best sight of all, Eddie dancing with a smile, shaking more from laugher than rhythm, Beverly offering him an arm, Eddie twirling under it with a little noise of embarrassed joy… Richie could sleep fine in the greenhouse, but the peace rolling over him now was irresistible, he drifted off…

Someone kicked him in the shin. It was Eddie. One of his eyebrows was raised, his lips tweaked in amusement. 

‘Who knew your bedtime was sooner than Georgie’s.’ 

‘Fuck off,’ Richie laughed, voice rough from sleep. Limits blurred when one was half awake: he dreamt often and vividly, he couldn’t quite tell reality from not, he was about to loop his arm around Eddie’s waist and push him down onto the couch with him - then he remembered, he dropped his hand mid-way. ‘Tired of dancing?’

Eddie shrugged. 

‘I wanted to check on you.’ 

Richie frowned. Ever since that failure at the river, Eddie and he hadn’t had any opportunities to be alone. He _had_ asked, pathetic as he was, if Eddie could hang out this time or that: he’d asked three times, and Eddie had always managed to be busy. So he’d given up. All he’d hoped for in the past few days was that Eddie would forget that entire series of stupid maybes and stop being skittish around him. And now here he was, alone, tapping an impatient foot against the couch, come to _check_ on him. Richie scrambled to sit up.

‘Want to play doctor?’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Eddie snorted, sinking into the space Richie had made for him. They were like this too in Richie’s treasured photo: Richie was certain he was looking at Eddie with the same fondness. If he put his arm around him, it would be identical - but if he tried, Eddie might flinch away. 

‘We _used_ to play doctor, remember? Everyone else hated it.’

‘That’s because you were a mean fucking doctor.’ 

‘I wasn’t _mean_. I just wanted my patients to be still,’ Richie countered. He was stern, he remembered that much; and he also remembered how much he’d enjoyed that innocent little rush of power; and the way Eddie would _obey_ , and obey completely, better than all the others, though he’d whine sweetly all the way through, had been engraved in Richie’s mind for years. ‘ _You_ would play with me.’

Again, Eddie shrugged, though this time he was looking away. 

‘You were nicer to me.’

‘You were my favourite patient,’ Richie smiled. 

‘Because I was the only one that _stayed_.’ 

‘Nah. I liked you best from the start. Only wanted to play it with you.’

And Eddie went a little pink at that, delicious under the dim lighting, and Richie _swore_ he’d shifted an inch closer. 

‘You really don’t want to dance?’ he asked quietly, looking up at Richie - _up_ , because he was so fucking little, a fairy, a _nymph_ \- with a subtle smile. 

‘I’d probably blind all of you with my elbows,’ Richie answered lamely. He was wondering if he might get away with lacing Eddie’s shoulders now, if Eddie would go pliant with a low hum of agreement like he did when they were kids, when Richie would tell him to stay still, that he was going to feel around his chest. 

Meanwhile, Eddie raked their corner of the basement with a thoughtful gaze, before sending a glimpse at the Losers on the other side of the shadowed space.

‘We could dance here.’ 

‘Huh?’

‘We could dance here. Then I’d be the only one you could blind.'

‘ _Eds_ ,’ Richie faltered. He looked down at the armrest, half expecting to find his sleeping head there. ‘You know I have _very_ sharp elbows. You sure you can handle it?’

‘If you’re careful,’ Eddie rolled his eyes. 

He stood, and Richie rushed up to follow him, nearly tripping on himself. He hoped Eddie would let him twirl him around, like Beverly had done; he hoped Eddie would let him _touch_ , arm, hip, shoulder, whatever; but since he didn’t know _what_ was allowed and what would make Eddie even more skittish, he just hovered, anxious, eager to be led - and because nerves made him talkative, he quipped:

‘I don’t know, Eddie, you’re so short that my elbows line up perfectly with your nose.’

‘Do you honestly have so little control over your body?’

‘Happens when you hit puberty. Don’t worry, you’ll get it someday.’ 

‘You’re such a dickhead,’ Eddie huffed. ‘At least I can dance without causing bodily injury.’ 

‘You’re the one who _asked_ me-’

‘Because you were looking fucking pathetic over here!’

‘I was sleeping!’

‘Yeah, you sleep too much,’ Eddie snapped back. It was the first time he’d made any mention of the happenings by the river bank. There was annoyance there, behind the tease, just a hint of it, or maybe vulnerability, with Eddie Kaspbrack the two were often intertwined, and Richie, circling fingers around one of his forearms, urged:

‘Come on, shortcake, I thought that was water over the bridge.’ 

‘It is,’ Eddie said, sounding honest - and then, to Richie’s utmost surprise and delight, he brought up both his hands to clasp Richie’s elbows. He held them in a tight grip, watching his own fingers for a moment, before looking up in search of confirmation. ‘This is just.. it’s just so you don’t gouge my eyes out, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Richie nodded dazedly. His mind wasn’t really working. ‘And now…’

‘Now we fucking sway.’

Richie laughed.

‘You should be a dance instructor.’ 

‘I couldn’t be an instructor of anything,’ Eddie replied. They’d begun their ginger swaying, barely the width of a step, too lazy for the rhythm of the music. His clasp on Richie’s elbows wasn’t the perfect soft touch Richie dreamt of, it was too arresting for that - “just so you don’t gouge my eyes out” - but Richie still dared return it with a gentle touch, wrapping his fingers ever so slightly around Eddie’s arms. After all, it was perfectly justified. It helped with the _sway_. ‘I’d be awful with my students, I have no patience.’ 

‘ _You_?! You’re kidding.’ 

‘Seriously, Richie, fucking shut _up_ ,’ Eddie said, but he couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘Anyways, I’m not even a good dancer. Look at Mike, _he’s_ good.’ 

‘Hm, I think you’re great. Saw you twirling with Miss Marsh over there.’ 

Eddie bit his lip, looking tersely to the side. Richie could plainly see the pink blooming high on his cheek. 

‘Not a lot of technique to twirling, Richie,’ he retorted, although his tone was forced. ‘It’s just… you know, it’s a _spin_.’ 

‘Oh yeah? Why don’t you show me?’

‘What?’

‘Let me twirl you, Eddie my love,’ Richie asked innocently. He knew it would mean very little - it’d mean rigorously nothing - but he was wonderful at pretending, he had plenty of practice, and he _wanted_. Maybe one of the Losers would look at them while they did it, see some silly spark of romance, disregard it entirely - still, that second in which they _wondered_ seemed to Richie like it would feel glorious. It was a vain dream, however, unless Eddie agreed; and sensing his hesitance, which tasted so bitter in Richie’s mouth, since Eddie had let _Beverly_ do it, had giggled all the way through it, Richie shook him encouragingly. ‘Come on, what’s the worst that can happen?’

‘A minute ago you were talking of _blinding_ me,’ Eddie glared. They’d stopped their little swaying, they stood in a standstill, two strong wills: and they were still holding each other’s arms, more stubborn than gentle but _something_. 

‘Well, you know, sight is overrated,’ Richie dismissed eagerly. ‘If I blind you, I’ll just become your eyes.’ 

‘God, no thank you. I’d prefer my eyes to be less mouthy.’ 

Richie laughed, a soft and fond sound, before shaking Eddie again. He was looking pleadingly, he knew, he didn’t much care; all he wanted was for Eddie to say yes; and in the end, with a sigh, he did. 

‘So help me God, Richie, if you do _anything_ …’ he warned, stepping away for one cold moment. Then his hand was seeking Richie’s with aggressive fingers, holding onto it like he’d been dared to, fitting that thin palm into Richie’s larger one, and Richie admired the perfect fit of it, swiping a decadent thumb across Eddie’s inner wrist, wishing he could have that little hand in his forever. ‘Do you even know what you’re doing?’

‘What, how to outstretch an arm? I think I can manage it.’ 

Eddie sent him a look that was all doubt, but he stepped out, and Richie did stretch his arm with a gentlemanly grin, Eddie breathing out at the very end of it, tightly clasping Richie’s hand.

‘And now you fucking twirl,’ Richie smirked, and Eddie broke into shrill laugher just as he began the movement, and he spun delicately, _beautifully_ , a little dancing of feet ending with him pressed right against Richie’s chest with a wide smile. ‘Hey,’ Richie murmured softly. 

‘Hey,’ answered Eddie. His smile had slipped away and, when he laughed, it was a nervous thing. ‘No elbows in eyes.’

On his part, Richie could scarcely speak. They were just so _close_. The dim light cast smooth shadows on Eddie’s face, it glistened in his eyes; the song seemed to tune down just for them; if the other Losers were still there, dancing on the other side of the basement, he couldn’t tell: it was only the two of them, his arm keeping Eddie secure against his chest, their fingers still entwined. Impulsive, dazed, he reached up with his free hand and brushed away a soft curl of Eddie’s hair. 

‘Thank God for that. Your eyes are way too pretty to fuck up,’ he said - and then the record stopped, the basement crashed into silence, Eddie jumped away just like he had done by the river. 

Richie couldn’t even catch him. On instinct he’d reached out, seeking those dainty fingers again, but Eddie was hurrying towards the other Losers, refusing to look back. He’d run away. And Richie looked, and looked, and none of the Losers was looking back, which meant no one had _seen_ , no one could assure him he wasn’t fucking _hallucinating_ ; and he saw Eddie smile at them, and they smiled back, everyone carefree, and Bill put on another record, and Richie sank into the red couch with a sigh. 

What the fuck had _that_ been? 

He looked down at his fingers, half expecting to find them glistening with fairy dust. They itched to touch Eddie again. He’d been so pretty pressed against him, his chin tilted up to look at him with those teasing eyes of his, so wide and delicate and begging to be filled with tears, after Richie had worked him over enough, wrung him out and then kept going… and he’d been so sweet, all Richie’s, safe between his arms, and _friends_ didn’t do that, and Eddie must have known that because he _ran_. And he kept his back to Richie now, on fucking _purpose_ , like it didn’t fucking kill Richie to be forbidden from watching his face, his frown, his smile, even if they weren’t meant for _him_. 

Richie didn’t dance again. Around the middle of the new record, Georgie was called upstairs to go to bed. Bill went with him and, on his returning, he had a dispirited expression: his parents said it was too late, they were kicking the Losers out. They all shuffled by the front door to say goodnight to Bill. Then, they began their arrangements home. 

‘Ben and I are walking together,’ said Beverly, already taking Ben by the arm. 

‘I’ll go with you guys.’ 

‘No, Mike, come with _me_ ,’ complained Stan. ‘Your house is the only one close to mine.’ 

‘I want to take the long way,’ Mike shrugged. ‘It’s nice out. Look at the stars.’ 

The sky was clear, bright black, dotted in glistening white. It wasn’t cold, but there fluttered the soft breeze of summer nights, barely a whisper, a mere graze to cool their cheeks. It _was_ a great night: Stan decided to join them for the moonlit walk. 

‘Eddie, Richie, what about you guys?’ 

Usually, Richie would cling to Eddie’s heels and make sure he got home safe. This time, he doubted Eddie would let him, so he was about to reply that he’d join them as well, planning to walk them all home and then make his lonely way to the greenhouse - but before he could get a word out Eddie intervened:

‘I’m tired, I think I’ll go home. Will you come with, Richie?’

And Richie nodded, of course he did, not a thought about it. He couldn’t explain Eddie’s hot and cold games, nor hope to win them: but he would always play. So the two of them said goodbye to the other Losers, before proceeding down the street alone. Derry was mostly quiet at night. Maybe there would be some life by the movie theater, still lingering in front of the arcade, or clustered in bars and restaurants; but around the residential streets there were only cicadas, distantly owls, and occasionally the wavering of leaves to complement the silence. Desperate to ease the tension between them, and with some luck to understand what the hell was happening in Eddie’s mind, Richie scrambled for something to say. It was Eddie again who spoke first.

‘Actually… actually I was thinking,’ he looked at Richie, then looked crossly away, like he was frustrated at the entire world. ‘I was thinking we could go over to your house.’

Richie's step stuttered, enough for Eddie to miss his presence beside him and look over his shoulder with a frown. Richie sent him a careless grin and started walking again. Eddie hadn't gone to his house at night in _months_ ; he'd become irrevocably skittish about it, he didn't even make up excuses to nurse Richie's eager heart, he simply refused; and now - well, Richie might be misinterpreting things - but wasn't Eddie inviting _himself_ over? To Richie's bedroom, like when they were kids? Such a drastic change, and it _had_ to be related to those strange happenings between them. The universe was not _so_ random: there were links, there were causes, and this was certainly some fucking _effect_. 

'Yeah, sure,' he said, aiming for casual. If he picked up his step a little in excitement, he hoped Eddie couldn't tell. Not like Eddie couldn't keep up - he might have shorter legs, but he didn't actually _step_ on the sidewalk, he floated an inch above it like the fairy he was.

'Okay,' Eddie nodded to himself, sounding weary. 'Okay, yeah. We can hang out like we used to.' 

'As long as we're doing things we _used_ to do,' Richie began with a little smirk, 'are you sure you don't want to revisit that doctor game?' 

What he didn't expect was for Eddie's expression to morph into one of nerves and amusement and _tease_ , nor for him to say, 'Maybe.' 

'Huh… right. Right. Well, huh… there's bad things lurking in the night, Eds. You know, vampires, rapists, clowns. We should probably walk faster. A _lot_ faster.' 

And then, as he rounded the corner, besides himself, jittering with anxiety and _excitement_ , and a scruple away from clasping Eddie's arm and physically dragging him to his house, his room, his bed, he actually saw the house, looming quietly in the night, and he realized he didn't live there anymore. He didn't fucking live there. At most, he could tug Eddie to the greenhouse, assure him there were not quite as many bugs as it looked, hardly any cobwebs, only a smidge of dirt, and see if Eddie would let him touch him _then_. 

He stopped in his tracks, clenching his teeth. Anger was seeping into every fiber of his being. If he had indeed been holding onto Eddie's arm, he might have cracked one of his pixie bones. 

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing. Nothing,' Richie said, trying very much to force a smile. 'We're fucking peachy. It's just… you want to walk around a while before we go in?' 

Eddie considered him for a moment. If he was disappointed, he didn't show it - then again, Richie couldn't tell what was it that he _was_ feeling.

'What about the rapists and the clowns?' he teased eventually. 

'Like they'll dare threaten you when I'm around,' Richie grinned heroically.

He didn’t know _where_ they were going. Confidence, and faked confidence at that, was the only weapon he could cling to: guiding Eddie with a sure step, like he knew just the corners to turn and streets to cross. In truth he had only one preference, which was to stay as far from the other Losers’ sight as possible. He didn’t want any interruptions. A glimpse of Stan or Ben and Eddie might change his entire mind, go cold and distant again, skitter up to them with his back very firmly turned to Richie, and barely a goodbye whispered to console him. No, he would keep Eddie for himself. The “how” of it all was still fuzzy - but he’d figure it out, where there was a will there was a way and all that shit, he’d crack Eddie’s strange little plans while they were walking, or convince him to go to _his_ house instead. 

Richie’s game of avoiding the Losers brought them across the street from the smoothie shop. Richie meant to walk through it, too absorbed in his thoughts, when Eddie seized his arm. 

‘The parking lot,’ he said. ‘We could sit there. Mike was right, the stars _are_ pretty tonight.’ 

What was _with_ him? Was he trying to kill Richie? All warm eyes and soft words, retreating as soon as he was touched, did he want to drive him mad? And then he actually tugged Richie’s sleeve, most likely because in that moment he must not have seemed capable of understanding _anything_ , he was far too dazed for that; and he coaxed Richie across the road and to the small parking lot. They sat on the graffitied bench, their backs to the patch of yellow weeds, the shop to their right, ahead a row of houses against a backdrop of starry black. No one else roamed the street.

‘We should know some constellations,’ Richie commented. ‘Then we could point at them and shit.’ 

‘Or we can just _look_ at the stars.’ 

‘Well, we _have_ to, because we know fucking zero about them. But it’s not as impressive.’ 

Eddie rolled his eyes and pointed at a patch of black sky above them. His neck stretched in a graceful curve as he looked up, all soft caramel skin. Richie’s eyes lingered on it for a moment, before he could summon the self-control to follow that dainty finger up to the stars. He wanted to bite the baby flesh under his jaw, leave marks there that could not be covered.

‘See those stars over there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s a cluster.’ 

Richie laughed. 

‘Oh yeah? That’s the technical term for it?’

‘You bet.’

‘Eds the astronomer,’ Richie hummed behind a smile. ‘Alright. See those four stars to the left of your cluster?’

‘Yes.’ 

‘That’s a line.’

It was Eddie’s turn to laugh, a little wild sound that warmed Richie’s heart. He couldn’t help dipping his eyes back down to the elegant curve of his throat, watching the little tremors there. And when he looked up, after the laughter had stopped, he found Eddie had a smile that was almost _fond_ , no impatience in sight, just happy and amused, and Richie wanted to kiss him so much it hurt. He might have, the impulsive idiot he was, if Eddie hadn’t started speaking. 

‘Do you have a cigarette?’

‘Huh, yeah. Why?’

‘Can I try it?’

Richie whipped his head back so fast there was an audible snap. He could barely process those words coming from Eddie’s mouth - and yet his eyes were serious, if a little nervous.

‘Of course not.’

‘Why the fuck not?’ Eddie asked with a frustrated frown. 

‘Because you don’t _want_ to.’

‘I just fucking _asked_ you!’

‘Yeah, and you’re obviously a clone of the real Eddie Kaspbrak, whose interests I’m looking out for.’

‘Just let me try it, Richie!’ Eddie demanded, sticking his hand out with his palm stretched flat. Richie sighed, not quite believing in reality any longer, and fished a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. Eddie looked at them, trying to hide his discomfort, and Richie couldn’t help chuckling. 

‘Oh fuck off.’ 

‘Here, let me light it for you,’ Richie offered. Once it was lit, tip burning orange, he passed it carefully to Eddie. ‘Now you put your lips tight around it and suck in the smoke.’

‘Couldn’t have given a slightly less pornographic explanation?’ Eddie glared. 

‘I said “the smoke”, didn’t I?’ Richie smirked. Eddie just kept looking at the cigarette, shifting a little on the bench, his thigh pressing against Richie’s. ‘You know you can change your mind, Eds. You don’t have to do it just because all the cool kids are doing it.’ 

‘You’re literally in a fucking club called the Losers, Trashmouth,’ Eddie huffed. He neared the cigarette to his lips, and Richie watched raptly in wait, but he stopped there, sighing, looking a bit in panic. ‘You know there’s heavy metals in this shit?’

‘Are you serious? Thought it was strawberry.’ 

‘Shut up. How will it feel?’

‘Tough to explain. It’s kind of like eating smoked fish with your lungs.’ 

‘God, I hate you so fucking much,’ Eddie said, although he laughed - and then, with a sudden spark of courage in his moonlit eyes, he sealed his lips around the cigarette and inhaled. 

It _was_ pornographic, watching Eddie try to smoke. Then again, Eddie could do very little without Richie thinking of sex. He would giggle, and Richie would think of how much breathier that sound would be if Richie were tracing featherlight fingers down the sides of his body. He would huff in impatience, and Richie would wonder if he would be even brattier in bed, always whining and demanding. He would breathe, and Richie would dream of lightly squeezing his throat, telling him “no, not yet, not until I say”, watching as his cheeks went pink and his eyes filled with tears and he _held still_. 

Then Eddie recoiled from the cigarette, coughing lowly, blurred in smoke, and Richie’s heart melted into fondness. He laughed softly, taking the cigarette from Eddie’s fingers. 

‘So what do you think?’

‘Why do you like this?’ Eddie asked. His voice was strained, and Richie thought once more - because the flood had begun, he could not control it - that Eddie would speak like that as well after he’d been obediently choking on his cock. 

‘Well, I didn’t like it the first time either.’ 

‘Then why’d you keep trying it?’

‘Looked cool,’ Richie shrugged with a smirk. ‘Want to try again?’ 

Eddie considered a moment, then looked away, back at the tranquil night sky. 

‘No. No, you can finish it.’ 

And Richie did, blowing a lazy puff of smoke while he watched Eddie’s tense expression. He didn’t seem _happy_ , if anything he seemed disappointed, and Richie couldn’t really figure out why. 

‘You know,’ he began cautiously, ‘that was very brave of you.’ 

‘Fuck you,’ Eddie muttered, still averting his eyes. 

‘I’m being serious!’

‘It wasn’t _brave_. You and Bev do it all the time.’ 

‘Yeah, but I know it’s harder for you,’ Richie reasoned. Still Eddie turned his face, so he touched a tentative hand to his back, tracing a reassuring circle there, and added in a tone half teasing and half yearning, ‘My brave little baby.’

And Eddie shuddered, the loveliest and subtlest little thing. His eyes held a new and fierce type of impatience when he met Richie’s.

‘Can we go to your house now?

It tore through him, that he couldn't say yes. He was dying to say it, to usher Eddie into his bedroom - his _old_ bedroom now - and do whatever the fuck the little minx wanted, whether that was to simply "hang out", like Eddie had said earlier, to lay on his bed and bicker until they fell asleep like they did when they were kids, or to play that ridiculous game of doctor - "stay still, lift up your shirt, take a deep breath" - that had haunted Richie's dreams for years, or something else, something _more_ … whatever it might be, Richie _needed_ to find out, but he couldn't. That house was not his. He couldn't bring Eddie there, and he couldn't tell him why. 

Why don't we go to your house instead?' he suggested.

'You know my mom is a light sleeper.' 

Richie had been to Eddie's house countless times, and he knew Ms. Kaspbrak's sleep was no coma, sure, but it wasn't _light_ either - and he was speechless for a moment, wondering if Eddie was planning on being _loud_. Then some cinders from his cigarette fell on his jeans, Eddie coughed impatiently, and he was pulled back into reality. 

'Mine too,' he countered weakly. 

'Richie,' Eddie said pointedly. 'You always say your parents sleep like they're dead.’

‘My room is a mess.’

‘Isn’t it always?’

‘It’s worse. Piles, _mountains_ of clothes. You’d probably get yourself lost in there. Slip right into a loose sleeve.’ 

Eddie stood up, looking at Richie with a mix of frustration and nerves, while Richie simply sat there and exhaled more smoke, feeling like he was groveling in the absolute fucking lowest point of the universe. He wanted to hope Eddie might relent, but he knew it wouldn’t happen. No, his little face was falling, more reserved and sullen with each second of their indecisive silence. 

‘Fine,’ Eddie said, with a trace of resentment in his tone that tugged at Richie’s heart. ‘It’s alright if you changed your mind, Richie.’ 

‘I didn’t! I want you to come over,’ Richie urged - and then stammered, and fidgeted fingers, and ultimately stood with a jump. ‘It’s just that my parents have me grounded, is all. I don’t think they’d appreciate me having night visitors.’ 

But Eddie shook his head, almost to himself. He *knew Richie was lying, he probably thought Richie was regretting everything, it sure fucking *looked like it - and he was hurt, Richie *had hurt him, and he couldn't apologize, couldn't tell the truth, couldn't make it better.

‘Forget it,' Eddie murmured, 'Let’s just… let’s go home. Forget it.’ 

And he turned to start walking, like he couldn’t look at Richie anymore. On his part, Richie was rooted to his spot by the bench, too shocked and disappointed and fucking _angry_ to process anything. When he came to himself, Eddie was already halfway down the small parking lot. 

‘I don’t _want_ to fucking forget it,’ Richie shouted, rushing to meet him. 

‘Then remember it on your own, for all I care,’ he heard Eddie retort in a clipped voice. 

His step was unforgivingly brisk, the fucking army ant, running rabbit, little mouse, and Richie had to run to catch up. In his hurry, he’d let the cigarette fall on the asphalt. They were still the only people in the street. Above them, the sky seemed less peaceful than before, rather oppressive. When he finally got close enough to Eddie, despair compelled him to catch hold of his wrist, forcefully stopping him in his place. 

‘Why are you being such a little snowflake all of the sudden?’ 

‘Am I not allowed to change my fucking mind?’

‘You were practically dying to go to my house a minute ago!’ Richie shouted, because he _had_ been, all open-eyed and eager, the prettiest fucking thing Richie had ever seen, and Richie couldn’t accept he’d actually _lost_ that. 

But Eddie just shook his head and, slipping his arm from Richie’s hold, started walking again. 

‘I wasn’t _dying_. Just go home, Richie. We’ll see each other tomorrow.’ 

‘No. I’ll walk you home.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, _why_?’

‘So you don’t get devoured by a fucking chipmunk,’ Richie answered stubbornly, setting his pace with Eddie’s again.

‘Would you quit it with the jokes about my size?’ 

‘I will when you _grow_.’ 

‘Fuck you,’ Eddie snapped. For a long while, those were the last words spoken between them. Both walked with their heads low and their hands in their pockets, Richie a bit behind. To a passerby, it wouldn’t even look as if they were walking together. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe Eddie was perfectly content ignoring his existence. At least that was what Richie thought, until they were about a street from Eddie’s house, when he finally slowed his pace. They still weren’t talking, but their sides grazed each other with every step. It calmed something inside Richie. He unset his jaw, unclenched his fingers and slipped them from his pockets. He was even considering one last insistence, as soft as possible, but at that moment they reached the house and Eddie very firmly said, ‘Goodbye.’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ Richie glowered. He _hoped_ Eddie would say something else, anything at all that restored the night to its previous glory, when everything had been laughs and touches and _opportunities_. But he simply turned and walked away. Richie watched, alone in the quiet street, while Eddie unlocked the door and went in. Then he stood there a moment longer, feeling the darkness creep into his skin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at autumn#2451


	6. Forest Puddles

Derry summers were dry by rule. But Derry had a way to it, a rather sentient way for a city, to often shock and bother and inconvenience. There was always a time, sometimes scattered days throughout the hot months, sometimes comprised into two weeks, where the sky darkened and rain fell. 

Richie had never given it much thought. They were days to lay down and listen to his records, let the rain fade to static while the vinyl spun, watch the slithering stream on his window. A summer interlude. Now, however, things were different. He didn’t have a roof. No, better said: he did have one, a thin glass one that had served him well when the foremost agent of nature it had to endure had been moonlight. With the storm the glass panels shook, water slithered through the cracks, the dirt below was wet and cool - and Richie curled under his measly table fort and watched as raindrops soaked into his blanket. 

Understandably, he’d been in a poor mood for the last two days. 

The morning had finally dawned with a clear sky, if a bit grey. In the forest there was a residual rain, water ever slipping from the higher branches of the trees. Still, worms and bugs, and Richie with them, could leave their shelter at last. The Losers had agreed to meet on the first day of sun: Richie was going, but first he had to stop at Beverly’s. Those two miserable fucking days had made him cold to the bone; he’d eaten almost all his food reserves, a strict diet of shitty granola bars, he felt like a fucking squirell; and his mind was dulled from hours of chainsmoking while watching the rain. He needed a hot shower, a meal with _flavour_ and some goddamned human interaction. 

He didn’t bother taking his bike out of the greenhouse. His feet sunk into the wet dirt while he walked out of the forest. Breaking the tree line, he could see the streets were drier, crackling under the heat again, like it was proper in fucking june. When he got to Beverly’s house, ready to lurk around and smoke his last cigarette while he waited for her dad to leave for work, and probably bask in that bare sunlight like a fucking street cat, judging passerbys be damned, he was surprised to find _Ben_ there. He was pacing around, Richie could see his worried frown all the way from across the street, and there was a controlled spring in his step like he was fighting the urge to climb right through Beverly’s wall, frog or burglar style, and into her bedroom. Richie sighed and crossed the street. 

'You know she's got no hair to let down for you, right?' he said by way of greeting. 

Ben looked at him with a very composed sort of double take before going pink. 

'I just want to make sure her dad leaves for the day, so she can join us.' 

‘And are you okay with me sticking around, or is being a creep more of a solitary activity?’

‘You’re one to talk,’ Ben huffed, even pinker now. 

‘Meaning?’ 

‘Nothing.’

‘Sure,’ Richie knew full well what he meant. ‘You cool if I smoke?’

Ben nodded idly, eyes nailed ahead. ‘No problem,’ he said. Richie figured that’d be his answer - Beverly blew so much smoke into his throat that his lungs ought to be rotten anyway; and the smell of tobacco was surely hotwired to his heart. 

So Richie took that precious last cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Taking a long drag, blowing smoke into the softly sunlit street and watching it scatter in lazy tendrils, he glimpsed at Ben again. He still looked worried, all pinched and sour, and Richie might normally have felt some sympathy from one lovesick puppy to another, but in that moment all he was thinking was that Ben being there meant he wouldn’t be able to get his shower, his meal, his honest conversation. 

‘Does Bev know you wait so long for her?’ 

‘She knows I worry,’ Ben answered tersely. It really was fun to poke him, he was nothing like a bear, maybe an old cat, an owl, all wisdom and no threat. Still, he wasn’t as fun as Eddie. His Eds would have mouthed off, glitter eyes burning holes into his head - Ben only paced away from him. He might be alright with calling Richie creepy, all the Losers were, they did so in their heads, expressed it through gently worried eyes when Richie clung too eagerly or made a point to follow Eddie around, walk him home or bully his way into his team, but he wouldn't accept they were fucking _similar_ : no, Ben would polish all his reasons with honour and concern, phrase them fucking gold, but it wouldn't change the fact that at the end of the day they both lurked under windows. At least Richie knew how much of an obsessed creep he was. 

Beverly came out ten minutes after her father had stumbled down the porch. Her smile, all glad and crooked for Ben, faded upon recognizing Richie.

‘Did you boys like the rain?’ she asked, eyes firm on him. 

'Fucking drag. Ran out of cigarettes,' Richie shrugged. What he _wanted_ to say was that they had to go to Mr. Brown's convenience store so Beverly could bat her pretty eyes and distract the sexagenarian pedophile while he shoved snacks and tobacco into his bag; and that those days had been terrible, he'd had barely any food, and no heat, no entertainment, no _Eddie_ ; and that he'd kill for a shower, and that in that moment he fucking hated her boyfriend.

By the way Beverly squeezed his hand in passing, she understood _some_ of it.

‘Missed you,’ Ben simpered then, all gentle and oblivious while they started down the road. Fucking creep.

Everyone else was already at their meeting point. It was a small square off to the side of town, houses lining half of it, the forest on the other side. The slabs of stone were cracked and littered with gum and cigarette butts; small puddles glistened in the sunlight; the churro stand that usually opened shop there was covered with a tarp; and although all the other benches there were vacant, one was overfilled: Mike and Bill perched on the back of it, Eddie was between Mike’s legs, resting an elbow on his knee, Stan was between Bill’s, and their chatter was so loud it overcame the birds in the dense tree line behind them. There had passed two days, it wasn’t exactly a lifetime of forgotten memories, but Richie still felt the fiercest flutter at seeing Eddie; and his gut uncurled, and his breaths came easier, and he _itched_.

‘We should have met at the arcade,’ Stan said as soon as they were within hearing distance.

‘Weren’t you the one who suggested this place?’ asked Ben.

‘I wanted a churro,’ he shrugged. ‘There are no churros. And now we have to go to a _second_ place.’

‘Yeah, Stan, and God forbid we do _that_ -’

Richie tuned them out, gingerly stepping closer to Eddie. They hadn't been speaking much since that disastrous night of maybes. Eddie, the little minx, had done well on his promise: he'd forgotten all about it. Not the briefest mention in about a week - but Richie had noticed the way he'd stick to the others when they were walking home at night; how he'd gladly go the opposite way to his own house, fucking run in _circles_ around Derry if that meant not walking with Richie; and Richie had ended too many nights burning holes into the backs of Mike or Ben or Bill, whoever improvised knight was walking Eddie Kaspbrak home by the arm instead of him. Mostly he'd endured it, gritting teeth and curling fingers, telling himself not to fucking push and let Eddie lead for a while - the last day had been torture, he'd planned to say something the next morning - then had come the rain.

Softly, he jostled Eddie's shoulder. Those warm eyes snapped to him: it was electricity in his veins.

'Move over, I wanna sit.'

Eddie smiled, a glittery thing that vanished too quick. Almost like he'd _missed_ him or something.

'I can't. Mike.'

So Richie turned his attention to Mike, who was still sitting perilously on the back of the bench and currently defending, Richie guessed from half the ear he was devoting to the Losers' bickering, that they should go down to the river and see its flood bed. 

'Move the fuck over.' 

'Damn, Richie, two days without seeing each other and that's the first thing you say to me?'

Richie just shrugged. It was hard to feel bad when Mike _was_ in fact moving, and Eddie, stuck between his legs, was sliding with him. 

'I'll suck your dick later,' he flashed a grin, sitting in the space made for him. In his opinion, narrow sitting was the blessing of the lovesick: it had been an excuse to press sides together since the beginning of time. He could feel Eddie's sunkissed skin bleeding into him, burning the lingering rain away. 'What do you want to do, Eds?' 

'Nothing.' 

'Oh come on.' 

'Fine. I want to go home.' 

'Jesus, woke up on the wrong side of the bed today?'

And Eddie tried to glare, but Richie could suddenly see an anxiety waxing at him, straining his eyes. It tugged at Richie's heart. He shifted closer. 

'I should have brought an umbrella,' Eddie sighed then, looking up at the sky. 'It's gonna fucking _r_ _ain_ again, Richie.' 

'Ah,' Richie smacked his lips together. Around them, the other Losers were drowning them out, raising voices: Beverly thought it best they did something worthwhile, that she'd been cooped up with her father for too long. 'Rain. Right. Basically leprosy falling from the sky.'

'Go die,' Eddie hissed. It didn't sound very threatening, not with the way he was fidgeting his fingers. 

'Look,' Richie began - and on impulse, he brought down a hand to trap Eddie's small ones, keeping them still. Eddie looked up at him with a mix of surprise and annoyance, but Richie, determined to pass it off, continued, 'We could go to the movies. At least it's got a roof.' 

'I already suggested it,' Eddie sighed again. 'Apparently there's nothing good showing.' 

'Whatever. Who goes to the movies expecting _quality_?' 

'Stanley Uris, Derry's greatest fucking cinephile, that's who.' 

Richie snorted. He'd fucking _missed_ Eddie. If only he'd gotten there sooner, Eddie might be sitting between _his_ legs instead of Mike's - and Richie could press Eddie's sides with his knees, maybe thread some fingers through his hair under some sorry excuse - "there was a ladybug, you had a white hair" - and admire the lovely pink that bloomed in the back of his neck. Then again, if he was doing wishes, he wished _Eddie_ was the one spreading his legs… and with that thought he clenched his teeth and looked away. _He_ was a creep, not Ben. And he was the worst fucking kind of creep because he had Eddie's trust, Eddie's _friendship_ , and he still couldn't go an hour without thinking about how good it would feel to fuck into that peachy ass or that sweet yet bratty mouth. No, he wasn’t like Ben at all. Ben’s obsession was scribbled teenage hearts: Richie’s was a cliff. 

'Richie?' 

He woke to the world. Bill was fighting through a stubborn -k, the others waited with bated breaths. Eddie was looking at him quizzically. 

'Are you broken?' 

'Oh most definitely, Eddie my love,' Richie laughed wryly. 'What's my prize if I get you into a movie?' 

Eddie poised one perfect eyebrow. 

'You think they'll listen to you, Trashmouth?' 

'Yeah yeah, you fucking princess, just you watch while I get you your damned ceiling,' Richie stood up, seeing Eddie's doubtful smirk from the corner of his eye, and clapped his hands together. The Losers all looked at him. 'Alright, folks, in _my_ humble opinion-' 

'Shut up, Tozier.'

' _In_ _my_ _fucking humble opinion_ ,' Richie went on, kicking Eddie's shin when he couldn't suppress his laugh. 'The best thing we could do is watch a movie.' 

'Sure,' Stan rolled his eyes. 'Take your pick: shitty werewolves and fake blood, or shitty romance and _more_ fake blood?' 

'Oh come on, Stan, since when did you become such a fucking hipster?' 

'I just don't wanna spend my money on some shitty special effects _Georgie_ could pull off.' 

'But you were happy to spend your money on that shirt?' 

'Beep beep, Richie,' warned Mike. 'Besides, I don't want to watch a movie either. We've been stuck at home for two days, shouldn't we go for a walk or something?'

'We've been going for walks since _june_ started! What's so fucking wrong with sitting down for once?' he looked at each of them with desperate eyes, primly ignoring Eddie's amusement. 'Come on! Ben, Bill, Bev? Who's with me?'

It was an uphill battle all the way through. There was a vague suggestion for the arcade, no one in particular was behind it but it kept coming back to bite Richie in the ass; Ben, bless his old man soul, meekly suggested the library, while Beverly was doing a great job of inviting them all to Bill's basement; at last he got them all thinking of the movie theatre, but then Mike was pushing for the lifetime romance, the other Losers weren't fans of cliche drive-in horror like Richie and Eddie, who would always sit together in their little rhythm, Eddie wondering what grimy little pathogens hid in those artificial gruels, and why _the fuck_ everyone _always_ split up when they barely had a full braincell all together; and this while Richie shrieked like bats into the shell of Eddie's ear and took advantage of the scariest moments to grasp his hand - then the fucking _arcade_ came up again, another ten minutes wasted on that - finally all were on board, even Stan, whose capacity to bitch about shit was the strongest, was eventually convinced by the prospect of popcorn instead of his churro. 

'Jesus fucking Christ, _finally_! Let's go, everybody.' 

'Wait,' Beverly said just as they were all about to stand up, 'Eddie, you never said what _you_ wanted to do.' 

'Oh,' Eddie nodded very slowly. 'Sure. A movie sounds fine.' 

Richie's smile then was nothing short of wolfish. He was walking ahead, leader of the idea as he was, and he beckoned Eddie to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Eddie could barely face him for five seconds before rolling eyes. 

'You can quit looking so fucking smug.' 

'Weird, is that how short people say thank you?'

Eddie bit his lips to keep from smiling. They were past the middle of the square now, the others a few feet behind them, heading towards the dead center of Derry. Richie had spent too long in that forest, smelling the rain and watching the leaves: he felt uneasy now, turning his back to the looming line of trees.

'How mad would you be if it _didn't_ rain?' Eddie asked.

'It will. _You_ said you would.' 

'Yeah…' Eddie drew the word out cynically. 'And I'm a neurotic seventeen years old, not a weatherman.' 

'Sure, but everybody knows pixies can predict the weather,' Richie grinned. 

'Oh, will you shut up?' Eddie huffed - and his eyes were sparking, but still his cheeks were dimpled and pink, and such an adorable exterior couldn't possibly have so much fire inside: he couldn't be human, he was a bomb, a stick of dinamite, a fucking chilly pepper. Definitely not human, and definitely above Richie. 'You're staring.'

'Huh? Oh. Yeah, there was a ladybug in your hair. No, don't- yeah, you scared it off. So, have you thought of my prize?'

'I can't stress to you _how much_ I thought you were gonna fail.'

'Well I didn't, Eddie baby, so what you got for me?'

'I'm not giving you any of my twizzlers.' 

'Fair enough, I'd steal those from you anyway,' Richie was looking straight ahead, Eddie was still tucked under his arm, he perfectly knew how to voice something like a joke, 'You know… if you were a girl, I'd say you had to kiss me.' 

There was a pause. Eddie seemed to have stuttered in his step. When he scoffed, it was weak. 

'Sexist.' 

'Well then, in the interest of gender equality-'

‘You fucking fairies.’

They snapped their eyes forward. Greta Bowie had just turned the corner of the street, she was sneering at them with her arms crossed. It was like the world itself conspired to ruin any moment between them: it showed them the beginning, toyed with hope, convinced Richie to show his heart time and time again - and it stabbed with a flick of a cosmic wrist, and it watched the blood flow. 

'That's not what your mom called me last night,' he smiled coldly. He could feel Eddie trying to squirm away from him, to pretend nothing had happened, that he'd _allowed_ nothing to happen, but Richie couldn't very well let him go, could he? Greta was all sharp teeth and dull, cruel wit, and Richie felt fucking _protective_.

'Funny,' Greta deadpanned, and Richie was about to reply again when from the corner came steps. Patrick, Victor, Huggins - and last of all, brushing bruised knuckles against his shirt, Henry Bowers. 

Now Richie wished he'd untangled Eddie from his arm after all. He did it, but it was too late. _This_ was love, _this_ was canon fodder.

The rest of the Losers had caught up, standing defensively behind them. Presently Stan stepped up, facing Greta with those bird eyes of his, those thin dry lips.

'We're going to the movies, want to join?' 

The Losers snorted, the bullies scowled. Richie could feel Eddie relax a bit beside him. But that was only until Bowers bared those bloody canines of his. 

'How about we play tag instead?' he grinned, and then they were all running. 

Mike and Bill had been the ones most behind: now they led the way while Richie closed the escape. Eddie was just an inch ahead, and Richie was fucking _worried_ because those little twink legs didn’t seem capable of winning over Bowers’s monster strides - but Eddie’s steps were fast if not long, not to mention fear encouraged him plenty, and Richie watched in relief as he went flying towards the other Losers. They were chased back to the square, their sneakers slipped and shrieked on the wet slabs, Richie could see Mike sprinting towards the ominous tree line, the others close behind; and Richie slammed his hip against one of the benches, he hardly noticed, blood was pounding in his ears; he slipped on a puddle, grazed his hands on the ground, hoisted himself right back up; he felt a hand grip weakly at this shoulder, he shook it off; Mike was long gone in the thick foliage, Bill, Stan… Eddie too had already disappeared; Richie lunged across the tree line, and the forest closed behind him. 

Leaves and branches cut at his skin, roots trapped his feet. He was closer to the bullies than he was to the Losers, so only the occasional flashes of Ben’s shirt kept his feet on track. From a few steps back, he could hear Bowers and his gang grunting, snickering, breaking twigs under their feet. They ran close to the ground, teeth out, fucking predators after prey.

Richie might have lost his last improvised race with Bowers, but he was determined to win this one. There were higher stakes when there were others involved: if _he_ was caught then he knew the others, golden-hearted shitheads as they were, would probably try to _save_ him. He made way to the Losers just in time to hear Mike shout: 

‘Split up! Ben, Eddie, you’re with me!’

And they scattered, they were ducking left and right - and Richie was absolutely going to ignore Mike’s orders, he’d go wherever Eddie went - then Beverly suddenly gripped his wrist, pulling him through the trees with her. 

‘Wait-’

‘Shut it,’ she said, hushed, sharp. She hadn’t let go of him, she didn’t trust him not to go back. Wise, really, because he would have. 

Time blurred while they ran. Little by little, the bullies fell behind. No sounds could be heard: nothing other than the birds and the lingering rain dripping from the branches. It sank into Richie's clothes, matted his hair with each time he pushed and squeezed through wet leaves. He felt like he was in the greenhouse again, damp to the bone. At some point Bill, who had obviously appointed himself the leader of their little group, signaled them to stop running - and they walked instead, furtive despite their winding breaths and rabbit-frenzy hearts.

'I bet they can smell us,' Stan was muttering to himself. 

'They c-c-can't smell us.' 

'How can you be sure? That Huggins looks like a hunting dog.' 

'Even if he c-c- if he could, it's raining, he'll only smell dirt.' 

_That_ made Richie pause. It really was raining again. He let himself fall behind with Beverly before glowering at her. 

'Why the fuck didn't you let me go with him?' 

'Because you make the most noise when you walk. They're together because they're _quiet_.'

'Well, I have to go find him.'

'Why do you _have_ to?' she asked, stern but not unkind.

'He doesn't like rain.' 

Beverly frowned like he was a stain on a wall.

'Look, Richie, unless you've got an umbrella on you I'm not sure how you can help him.' 

'He could be in fucking _trouble_.' 

'He'll be fine, he's with Mike.' 

'And what will Mike do?' 

'What would _you_ do?' 

'I'd kill them before they touched him,' he said - and he was calm, and he was serious. Because Richie knew he was no saint, fuck, for all he knew Bowers was the demon hired by God as punishment: Eddie, well, he wasn't _saintly_ either, but he was as close to a fucking angel on earth as Richie's atheism could permit. Those celestial beings of white fire and vindictive fury, where was their resting place if not in the spirit of Eddie Kaspbrak? Bowers and his gang didn't get to lay a finger on him. 

'I'm going.' 

Beverly looked at him from over her shoulder. Her face was all harsh lines. 

'You'll find Bowers sooner than you'll find him.' 

'Yeah, probably.'

'I'm worried about Ben too, but I'm not stupid enough to split from the group.'

'That makes one of us.' 

'And I'm not going with you, I'm not leaving Bill and Stan alone.' 

'I didn't ask you to.' 

'It's fucking _rain_ , Richie.' 

'He doesn't like it,' he shrugged.

'You're such a fucking idiot,' Beverly sighed, anger finally cracking away.

'Oh I know,' he snorted. 'Hug me in case I die?' 

'Fuck off,' she said, but Richie could see her leg twitch, like she really was about to step over and hug him. She didn't. 'Don't die.'

Pressing two fingers to his forehead in salute, he plastered on an easy smile. 'Yessir! And you better watch out for Stan: he's fragile.' 

He went out the way they'd come from. Only once did he turn, to see Beverly catch up to Bill and Stan through the trees. What bullshit excuse would she come up with to explain Richie having ditched them? They weren't idiots, neither of them: they'd guess Eddie was involved. When it came to Richie, Eddie was _always_ involved. 

Now, Richie's mission might be impossible in _theory_ , but he wasn't going in blind. He knew Mike's way of thinking, it wasn't so terribly complex: he wouldn't go deep inward, that there was nothing quite like a nicely isolated spot far from town to really encourage Bowers's violence; nor would he risk circling back, so he'd keep faithful left. Really, the problem was _catching up_ to them. He could only hope Ben's poor resistance had made them invest in discretion instead of speed. And then again, there was a high change he might run into Bowers and the bullies. So yes, in _theory_ it was impossible - but the practice of it still remained to be seen. 

While he walked the rain kicked up. Wet leaves slapped his arms, his hair was soaked through. Once he heard a rustling, then what could be trampling, and he crouched down between a flurry of tall bushes in wait. It was a rabbit waltzing through. He sighed and kept walking. Maybe he really would only find rabbits. Neither the bullies nor Eddie: he'd wander around with no result, the stupid idiot he was, all because he couldn't take Beverly's advice; and he'd go deeper into that fucking forest until he finally grew some roots and branches and settled down as a tree.

A new rustling sound. It was a rabbit again - no, Richie heard a voice, or less a voice than a howl, human only in speech. Then there was a glimpse of blond hair through the spindly trees. Victor. Crouching very primly at the core of a bush, where every twig was a thorn and every leaf, as it seemed, was also a thorn, Richie waited with hardly a breath. No more awful howling, no more glimpses. The forest was quiet and still again, apart from the rain. But it wasn't vacant, no, and _that_ pressed urgently at his mind with every careful step he took. 

The trees began to dwindle out. It was a part of the forest he knew well: they'd become even sparser ahead, thin and short, giving way to plains of overgrown weeds and, eventually, the delightful cement of Derry. They wouldn't have run _there_ \- so Richie took a shot and aimed right, into the center of the forest. There was more coverage there, a ceiling of greenery sparing him from the rain. His feet were getting tired. A thought crept into his mind, that any of the Losers might be bleeding onto the forest ground that very moment. Bowers might very well be wringing Eddie's neck - and what was Richie doing, besides keeping himself fresh while the bullies picked their teeth and wiped their hands, offering himself up for dessert? 

Then he heard a faint little sound. It was wet, it wasn't the rain. He went left, searched through the trees, trekked through a patch where the weeds and bushes grazed his knees: _there_ , in this little circle by the thick trunk of an oak, Ben and Mike were panting harshly, frowning, pacing around - and behind them, the object of all this concern, Eddie leaned against the enormous tree, hands on his knees, fucking _crying_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord, at #autumn2451


	7. Shelter from Rain

Richie didn't even think before he was running towards them. 

'What the fuck? What the _fuck_ , Mike? You were supposed to look out- was it Bowers? It was Bowers, wasn't it? Or that shithead Victor, I knew I'd seen him, _fuck_ , I'll break their knees. Here, Eds, lemme see, what's wrong?' he was muttering and hissing and cooing all at the same time, and trying to reach Eddie - but Mike barred his way with one firm arm, staring down at Richie with reproving eyes, and Richie _really_ had to keep himself from dragging Eddie away by force. 

'Richie, would you give him some-' 

'For fuck's _sake_ ,' Eddie stammered in a strangled voice. Both Mike and Richie turned to him in surprise: his tears were sparkling with weak anger. 'Why the fuck are you here, Trashmouth?'

'Why the fuck are you _crying_ , princess?'

'Be nice, Richie,' said Ben, who was watching the scene with hands on his hips like a frustrated mother, water dripping from his arms. In Richie's opinion, both him and Mike could very well fuck off while _he_ helped Eddie out. 

'I'm not fucking crying.'

'Yeah, you want to sniffle that again for me, Eds?' 

'I'm _not_ ,' Eddie huffed out, wiping tears and raindrops from his cheeks stubbornly, stepping away from them all, like he was absolutely fucking peachy and not at all shaking where he stood. But this was the Eddie that so carefully dosed out winded little breaths, painful and catching in his throat, because he couldn't bear to hyperventilate in public; and this was the Eddie that got stuck in his thoughts, gripping white-knuckled to his fanny pack; this was the Eddie that was _not_ anxious, did _not_ have panic attacks, would not admit to it in a million years; and Richie knew this Eddie well, loved him the same, knew how to help, so he grabbed both his shoulders firmly and looked him in the eye. 

'Talk to me.' 

Eddie, the repressed little soldier he was, held his gaze for a while - but he was too worked up, soon his lip was trembling against his will, he crumbled under Richie's steel grip.

'I told you it was gonna rain,' he muttered through gritted teeth. 

'I believed you.' 

'Well, it _is_.' 

'And what's so wrong about that?' 

'Stop it! I know-' but Eddie _didn't_ know, he didn't really know anything when he was like this; and Richie didn't remember him breaking down out of something as simple as _rain_ in a long time, but it wasn't just rain, was it? It was rain while they were chased by Bowers and his gang of degenerated humans, and who knew what was going on inside Eddie's mind, the danger that was pulsing through, screaming, warning. Still, Eddie was biting his lip until it was blood red, like it might help - and he was going to deflect, he didn't want to look weak, Richie was certain of it even before Eddie said, 'Let's just go. Let's go- fuck, let's go.'

'Yeah, pickle, because you're so okay to walk,' Richie scoffed. The rain kept thrashing at their faces, beading down the bridge of their noses and the curve of their ears. Eddie was aggressively pulling wet hair from his face. He could see now why they'd chosen the oak: the leaves were dense and large, an impromptu ceiling as good as they'd get in the forest, keeping them from the harsher rain falling a few steps away. 

'He was fine until the rain started,' Mike said, his tone all deep worry. 'And then he was, you know, _annoyed_ , which is nothing strange, so we kept on… but then he couldn't find his inhaler and now…' 

'Eddie doesn't carry his inhaler anymore.' 

'Would you quit talking like I'm not here?' Eddie snapped. 'Look, I'm fine now, I just needed a second. It was just a _second_ … let's keep walking.' 

'Nah, I'm tired now,' Richie dismissed easily - and, still gripping Eddie tightly by the shoulders, he turned to Mike and Ben. 'Would you guys go scout the field for a little while?'

Eddie thrashed, but Richie wouldn't let him go so easily; and Mike and Ben, because they were inconvenient little idiots when they wanted to be, just stood around with wet dog eyes.

'Why are you here, Richie?' Mike asked, not unkindly, no, of _course_ not, but with its share of judgement. 

'Oh you know,' Richie shrugged. His voice was clipped. 'I got lost.' 

'Did you leave the others?' urged Ben. 'Is Bev okay?' 

'Positively thriving. Might never want to leave the forest again.' 

'Let go of me, Richie, let's just _all_ -' 

'Oh my fucking god, would everyone just do what I fucking say? Mike, Ben, leave us the fuck alone. Eddie, _stay_.'

And it must have been the edge to his tone that did it, because Eddie went suddenly pliant beneath his fingers, and Mike and Ben went off with their tails between their legs. It was good they did: Richie had been getting way too impatient, too furious, too _desperate_ not to do something he'd regret. 

'I'm not a dog,' Eddie glared at him once Mike and Ben had disappeared between the trees. Richie couldn't distinguish tears from rain in his freckled cheeks, but the swollen pink in his eyes was obvious - and distressing - enough. 

'No, you're more of a kitten.' 

'Shut up,' Eddie was looking down, poking at the wet dirt with the tip of his shoe. 'This is fucking stupid.' 

If it was then I'd be laughing, wouldn't I?'

Eddie bit his lip. He didn't answer.

'Eddie, baby, you know you don't need your inhaler.' 

‘Don’t call me-’ he hissed; there was a catch in his throat. ‘Richie, I’ll get _sick_.’ 

‘Because you don’t have your inhaler?’ 

‘Because it’s fucking _raining_! And- and we’re running, and- I’ll get fucking pneumonia-’

Eddie was shouting now, a cracking little thing barely concealed by the sound of the rain, and there was such terrified anxiety in his eyes, minute flinches every second like he was recoiling from every single raindrop that fell on him; and Richie could _see_ he didn’t believe his own words, no, only compulsion forced him to say them, repeat them until their truth was less relevant than their danger, and Richie _hated_ Eddie’s mother, he always did for a myriad of reasons, but it was in these moments, when Eddie crumbled under this weight forced upon him, that he really did believe he could kill that miserable woman. 

Not that he’d say _that_. Murderous urges had their own time and place. So Richie simply softened his grip on Eddie’s shoulders, running light fingers through his soaked shirt, down his arms, gently encircling his elbows. It was a poor imitation of their little dancing in Bill’s basement a week ago, but it was nice, soothing, and Eddie seemed to calm down a bit. 

‘You’ve been out in the rain before, Eds, and you were fine.’

‘So I was fine _once_ , that doesn’t mean-’

‘You’ll be fine! You _know_ that. This is all stress, you know, from the psychotic motherfuckers chasing us.’ 

At least that got a weak smile from Eddie. It quickly descended into worry, but it was there nonetheless. Now _his_ hands were the ones reaching out, twisting in Richie’s wet shirt. He gave a little sigh: he found _himself_ obnoxious, and that broke Richie's heart.

‘I’ll get sick.’

‘Why would _you_ get sick and not us?’

‘I’m not saying you won’t get sick,’ Eddie rolled his eyes. ‘I just don’t give a fuck whether or not you do.’ 

Richie knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t keep from laughing. He fucking _loved_ him. And he knew what he had to do. 

‘Look, Eds, let’s walk to the river, yeah?’ he shook his arms encouragingly. ‘Remember those hillbillies that used to live on the east bank, past the old bridge? There ought to be some sort of shelters there. We can keep out from the rain.’

Eddie frowned a little. ‘That big family, all cousins or couples or _both_ or whatever the fuck was happening there?’

‘That’s the one,’ Richie smiled. ‘Come on, I think I know the way,’ and coaxing Eddie by the arm, they left the flimsy shelter of the oak. Without those thick branches over them, the rain snapped at their skin like elastic bands; it clung to their hair, soaked into their skin, beaded in their eyelashes; Eddie did look like a wet cat, a very angry wet cat, dignity the only thing keeping him from shaking away all the water in his soft fur. 

‘Are you gonna make fun of me forever because of this?’ Eddie asked. 

Richie hummed, considering. 'Depends on whether or not you get that pneumonia,' he grinned. Eddie elbowed him in the chest with a little huff, and in turn Richie draped an arm around his neck. ‘Here, kitten, I’ll be your own personal scarf.’

‘ _Wet_ scarf.’

‘Hm. Comfortable though, right?’

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he was biting off a smile. 

Across the trees they found Mike and Ben shivering under another oak, more water than person. Their faces were not without suspicion - but upon seeing Eddie more composed, which meant glaring and stomping around like usual, they were finally put at rest. Richie told them the new plan, they were all back to walking. Again silence settled, the tense alert of prey, aware of every sound and glimpse: and all the while Richie led them through a familiar path, to the wild river and up the muddy bank, faking turns of step and moments of indecision. They were there. With an empty little smile, he pointed into the trees. 

‘I think we found a building.’

The greenhouse was as he'd left it. Wild plants curled on the ground and crawled up the glass panes; shards of broken vases were ushered to the left of the archway; by the furthermost wall rested his shabby table fort, all his stuff tucked under it. His home, much the same as always. Except now Eddie, Mike and Ben were rushing in, judging eyes and careless feet, trespassing his secret - and Richie cared, he cared so _fucking much_ , but he couldn't very well have left Eddie roofless, could he? He'd had no choice. No, seeing those angry tears in those adorable fucking eyes, there'd been nothing else to do. 

He leaned against the archway, arms crossed, rain still thrashing his back, and watched while the others very mildly explored the place. They weren't going too far in, which was encouraging. But they didn't _walk_ like Richie walked. They had no problem stepping on the plants. Snapping the little roots.

Then Eddie looked at him, still compulsively checking his wet hair from his forehead, and yelled:

'Richie, get in!' 

And because he always thought people moved too _slow_ , the demanding little brat, he stepped forth and pulled him fully into the greenhouse. 

‘I really didn’t think we’d find anything,’ he said, glancing up at the cracked glass ceiling with amazement. He was easier now, no flinching, no hypothermia nor pneumonia running through his mind. It put Richie's heart at rest. 

‘Oh you know,’ he shrugged, going for casual. ‘I did tell you I’d get a roof over your head, didn’t I? It might not be a movie theatre, but it’ll do.’ 

Eddie smiled, this soft and bewildered thing which died within a moment.

‘I guess we won’t catch that movie after all,’ he sighed. 

It seemed like a fucking lifetime ago, didn’t it? Eddie skipping under his arm, sunkissed side against his own, that dimpled smile so unwillingly impressed, and Richie having _won_ something, having got it fucking right for once, and a hushed talk about rewards… then the sky had clouded over. 

‘Well, if you think about it, _this_ was kind of like a horror movie. And Stan didn’t even have to waste his money.’ 

'Bowers _does_ look like a werewolf,' Eddie snorted - and then promptly covered his eyes with his hands, huffing under his breath. ‘Oh my fucking god. _Richie_. We split up! We’re the people in the movies! _Fuck_. I swear we don’t have a brain. The seven of us collectively don’t have a brain.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Richie smirked. ‘I came to find you guys, didn’t I?’

And what he meant to say was: "I came to find _you_ , Eddie Kaspbrak, because my life is a series of being lost and then seeing you" - and what he meant to say was what he'd whisper in that greenhouse every night, and that was trapped in the branches and the twigs, and no one heard. 

So Eddie just glared at him. 

‘You went out _alone_. You’re worse than all of us. Honestly, you should be dead.’ 

‘Maybe,’ Richie shrugged, meeting Eddie’s eyes softly. 'I guess I finally get people in horror movies.’ 

Then Eddie frowned, like he was _almost_ there, one more second and he'd understand, and Richie waited with bated breath. Outside the rain had thinned a little, though it still streamed down the sides of the greenhouse; and Mike and Ben were by the archway, dutifully watching the forest - a weak blow of wind came, it made Eddie’s gaze tremble and fall, it was back on the ground. The moment was lost. Richie breathed once more.

‘I was excited about it, though,’ Eddie murmured. ‘The movie, you know? Before…’ he forced a laugh, it was clipped. ‘Before Greta came, called us fucking _fairies_.’

Richie gritted his teeth. A few years ago Eddie had liked Greta. A waste of his heart, his attention, his mere fucking _thought_ , in Richie's humble opinion - but Eddie had liked her all the same He'd liked her hair. He'd thought her lips were glossy. Richie's lips were chapped, and he'd looked in the mirror and hated himself. Now, Eddie knew her for the soulless bully she was, ego the size of a garden gnome and not quite as pretty as one. Richie still wondered, however, if Eddie liked her a little bit. A _memory_ of liking. In those moments, Richie would hate her more than he did Bowers.

'Well, she was half right,' he smiled, punching Eddie’s arm lightly. 'Fairy, pixie, nymph - I've been telling you for _years_.' 

Eddie rolled his eyes and laughed all together, that bitten off, fucking adorable little giggle he did when he didn’t want to show Richie he thought him funny. Then he bit his lip for an entirely different purpose, he was shifting his weight, he was looking nervously.

‘Remember I was supposed to give you a reward?’

‘Oh,’ Richie blinked. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I might recall something like that.’

And suddenly Eddie was hugging him, arms tight around his middle, wet nose poking his clavicle. Richie held his waist by instinct. They didn’t _usually_ hug. When they were younger they had, Richie had seized every flimsy excuse to gather Eddie in his arms, even when they were bickering, when Eddie was huffing frustrated insults and calling him Trashmouth; recently they’d stopped, but Richie remembered oh so well how to cling to Eddie’s middle, how to press his cheek to Eddie’s hair, lips so close to his ear he might even convince himself he was kissing the tender skin there. 

‘Thanks, huh, for the roof,’ Eddie whispered. His lips grazed Richie’s skin. It was quite possibly the best feeling in his fucking life. 

‘Anytime, kitten,’ he laughed lamely.

‘I’m serious, Richie.’

Richie’s smile was somewhat crooked.

‘Me too.’

‘Hey, guys? Guys! Come check this out.’ 

It was Ben’s voice. It didn't come from the entrance of the greenhouse: he and Mike had wandered off, edged too close to the table fort in bored curiosity, they'd found its hollow inside. Richie's stomach churned.

'Stay outta there. Might be rats or something,' he said carefully. The hug had ended, _of course_ , over four seconds of greatness wasn't allowed in his world, and Eddie had bounded up to the table fort, pulling him along. In the dark nook under it they could see his pillow, his ragged blanket, a glint reflected off the trash bag where he kept his polaroids of Eddie. Fuck, he shouldn't have brought them there. He could have dug Eddie a nice fucking hole with his bare hands, could have bodily carried him back to Derry, could have fucking climbed up to the heavens and made the rain _stop_ \- but he shouldn't have brought them _there_.

‘I don’t think so,’ Mike was frowning at the narrow space. 'I think someone lives here.'

‘Like a homeless person?!’ Eddie shrieked.

‘No, I bet they have a house all of their own,’ Richie droned. He couldn’t help the bitterness: _this_ was why he hadn’t told anyone. The way Eddie was rooted to his place, peering at the fort warily like he was afraid to get closer - how could Richie say it was _him_? Everything would change. Eddie wouldn’t hug him again. Wouldn’t even look at him without clinging to his fanny pack. 

‘Shut up, Richie,’ Eddie said, 'We better not touch anything. There might be, you know…' 

'Cooties, Eds? Syphilis?' 

'Quit it, Richie,' hissed Ben. Eddie was looking tersely away, and Richie bit his lip to shut himself up. He shouldn't have fucking said that after Eddie's episode back by the oaks. He was a fucking _idiot._ Probably best he just left. Let them get into his shit, find his dear little stash of photographic Eddie, know just how much of a creep he was, _homeless_ creep at that, probably crawling with germs and _definitely_ unfriendable, undateable, unlovable. Then Ben's head snapped to the left, he looked suddenly into the forest with wide eyes. 'Did you hear something?' 

They all shook their heads. 

'I _definitely_ heard something,' he insisted. 'I heard a voice.'

'We should go check then, shouldn’t we?’ Richie said impatiently. All he wanted was for them to get away from his stuff. Well, _that_ and possibly for Eddie to stop looking at him so murderously, but he daredn’t dream big. 

Eddie turned his back to him and went out in search of the sound with Ben. Richie prepared to follow, he was going to _apologize,_ when Mike silently grabbed his arm. 

‘What the-’

‘Wait,’ Mike whispered. ‘Let them go,’ and so Richie waited, and Ben and Eddie were across the greenhouse watching the rain-blurry forest when Mike spoke again, serious and hushed, ‘Richie. Can I ask you something?’

‘Get on with it.’ 

‘That bike there, in the weeds - is it yours?’

Richie could feel the color drain from his face.

‘Of course not. Looks like it, though.’ 

‘That’s the dent from where you tried to go down the stairs at the movies.’ 

‘Nah, man, that’s just a dent.’ 

‘ _Richie_. Is that your bike?’

‘Maybe it is. I couldn’t find it this morning. Must have been stolen.’ 

‘I don’t think you’re telling the truth.’ 

‘Well, look at my face of concern,' he scoffed coldly, he was running anxious fingers through his shirt - and Mike just stared, all unwavering and unreadable, and he wasn't convinced at fucking _all_ , and Richie was as good as dead, so he grabbed Mike's arm and hissed, 'Don't tell anyone.'

'We could help, Richie,' Mike murmured, and Richie wanted to laugh, wanted to punch him. 

'You don't fucking tell anyone. Don't tell Eddie. Fucking _forget_ it, Mike, you hear me?' 

'Mike, Richie! Come here!' 

'Oh my god, what the fuck _is it_?' Richie shouted. He was fucking sick of this: interruptions on interruptions on fucking interruptions. He wished it’d never stopped raining. That he was still curled up in his dark hole with the bugs and the worms. But Ben had sounded afraid, so Mike and himself couldn't really keep up their chat. With one last look between them, they went to the entrance of the greenhouse - and following Ben's pointed finger, Richie saw Bowers some yards off, watching them with glowering eyes amid the trees. 

'He's just standing there,' Eddie whispered anxiously. 

But he wasn't. Because his gaze had met Richie's, and now it was _moving_. Raking very pointedly through the greenhouse, then locking with Richie's eyes once more, smug and cruel. He smirked. Then he turned and walked away.

'What was that about?' 

'Too much of a pussy to take us on,' Richie shrugged tersely. A cold dread was growing inside him. The greenhouse wasn't at all far from the riverside spot where Bowers had found him washing his shirts; Bowers _knew_ he was homeless and now, seeing him there, in such a conveniently found abandoned building...

Well. It was just his luck. Mike knew, Bowers knew. He was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord at autumn#2451


	8. The Sun Rises

Stan was staring at his watch impatiently. 

‘Where the fuck is Bill?’ 

‘He probably got caught up with Georgie,’ Beverly shrugged. 

‘Bill never gets caught up with Georgie.’

‘Maybe he did this time.’ 

‘Sure, and maybe he fell down the drain.’ 

‘I think one of those is more likely than the other, Stan.’ 

‘Well, Georgie is a delight of a kid and Bill never watches where he’s going, so I really don’t know which one you mean.’ 

‘Would you fucking quit it?’ Richie sighed. He was trying to clean his glasses with his shirt, perched on a flimsy three-legged stool. They were sitting around in Mike’s family’s barn, idly kicking hay and watching the animals. Eddie stood on his toes and bent over a gate to feed a sheep - it was for _that_ adorable sight that Richie was cleaning his glasses. And Richie sat by the entrance of the barn, one of his legs cocked out and prepared to flee, like it _always_ was now. Ever since Mike had found out a week ago. He hadn’t done anything yet. Richie had watched him closely: there was fucking nothing. Mike was the calm ambience presence he always was, the social equivalent of a background lamp - and all the while Richie was eating himself with trembling hands, rotting very slowly in the corner, ever on edge, ever fearing, sitting close to the door. Because Mike _knew_. And he spoke to Richie without pity, he didn’t stare, he didn’t creep, a week had passed and he’d done nothing, but he still knew. He was free to fuck up his life whenever he wished. After all, baby pure hearts were not for secrets: that’s why he’d only told Beverly. Mike was too nice, and nice, well, Richie hated to say it, but nice meant _fucking stupid_ more times than not. So a week might have passed, the Losers might very well be the same, but Richie would still sit close to the door. 

That _Bowers_ knew was another problem altogether. A problem to fear in the middle of the night, watching the dark, paranoid eyes tracing shadows between the trees. But Bowers as well had done nothing, an _unsettling_ amount of nothing, and life went on much the same, which really only let Richie in a corner chewing his nails and wondering when the _fuck_ something would change.

Meanwhile, a goat with a crooked jaw had begun gnawing on Ben’s sleeve. 

‘We should have gone to Bill’s basement,’ Stan groaned, ‘I told you guys Bill’s basement was best.’ 

‘We’re doing nothing,’ Richie countered. ‘We can do nothing just as well here.’ 

Stan blinked slowly at him. 

‘I’m _Stan_. Let me do my thing.’

‘You’re right. Complain away.’

He was the first to hear Bill coming. His feet crunched the stale and yellow weeds. His eyesight was dancing with orange spots from the sun: he leaned against the archway, panting slightly, looking at the ceiling. The others kept kicking hay. It was one of the hottest days in Derry to date, their skin was close to melting, their minds were sticky slow.

‘Richie,’ Eddie said suddenly, not quite meeting his eye. ‘Don’t be a dick about it - but could you come help me?’

‘Sure thing, sweetie,’ Richie nodded at once, leaping from the little stool. Eddie hadn’t spoken to him very much at all that day, and he wasn’t about to miss the opportunity. ‘Want me to grab something off a high shelf? Or is this sheep giving you the side-eye?'

He expected one of Eddie’s snippy little comebacks, had been craving one all day, but Eddie was still looking stubbornly away - and Richie thought _that_ was strange, so he glanced at the others on impulse: Bill was no longer half way to fainting against the archway, he stood at the middle of the entrance, a fish-spine bouncer with his shoulders pushed back, nor did the others have those heat-blurry eyes anymore, no one was kicking hay, they were all looking - and looking, worst of all, with _concern_. Richie sighed, tensing all over, grinding teeth to powder and forcing impulsive words right back down his throat. He could do this. He’d always known. Baby pure hearts were not for secrets. But _first_ … first he turned back to Eddie. 

‘Guess you didn’t need help after all, huh?’ 

Eddie didn’t answer, didn’t meet his fucking _eye_ , and Richie wanted to laugh from how perfectly _accurately_ he’d predicted this. 

‘We k-k-know, Richie.’ 

‘No fucking shit,’ he scoffed, facing the others, their little semicircle of placating postures and worried eyes, a fucking cult in the making. ‘You were being so smooth about it.’ 

‘We want to help,’ said Ben, trying to look fierce in his goodness. It only made Richie smirk. He’d thought it before, he’d think it again: Ben was the old cat, the wise owl, fierce failed on him. ‘We just… we all want to help.’ 

‘You know, I don’t remember asking for your help. I _specifically_ remember telling Mike to shut the fuck up, though.’ 

‘Richie,’ Mike sighed. ‘That’s no way to live. Why are you sleeping there anyway?’ 

‘Did your parents k-k-kick you out?’ 

‘No, my room just gets hot at night,’ Richie shrugged. There were no laughs, he didn’t expect them: there were four frowns, the confusion of who thinks their help will solve anything and can’t understand it being refused; Eddie who had turned back to his sheep; Beverly’s subtle dry smile. Richie wondered how much she’d told. How much they knew. The times before he found the greenhouse, when he’d show up at her door matted with dirt and pierced with twigs after a night on the forest ground - had she told them that? Had Eddie prayed then to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, his fingers soaked in disinfectant? Oh, he could only smile. Smile empty, smile bitter. And all the eyes on him grew unsettled as he walked to Beverly, as he outstretched a hand. 

‘You got a smoke?’

‘Yeah,’ she sighed. Her eyes looked tired. She handed him the cigarette, he closed his hand around it. 

‘Well then. Thank you all so much for the intervention. I think I’m cured,’ he sent them a wave, ignored those golden little protests of theirs, was heading out - but Bill was blocking the entrance, he wouldn’t move.

'Told you guys Bill's basement was best,' Stan huffed. 'At least the door there has a _lock_.'

‘Would you just st-st-stay, Richie? We can figure this out together.’ 

‘There’s very little to _figure out_ , Bill, it’s not a fucking maths problem,’ Richie droned, staring coldly at the hand Bill had pressed to his chest in order to still him. ‘Are you gonna let me go or not?’ 

‘No, not until we-’ 

‘You know what, Bill?’ 

‘What?’ Bill’s eyes were hopeful, he’d never _learn_ , he’d never grow the fuck _up_ ; and those gazes on his back, he could feel their expectation too. Except Eddie’s. He was probably still looking at his sheep. 

‘Sometimes you get on my fucking nerves.’ 

And then Richie punched him. 

Because fuck that stubborn innocence of his, untouched by the years living in the suffocating and pitch dark basement of the world that was fucking Derry; fuck the way he could command an entire room despite his stammer, like every word of his was polished gold, like no one besides Richie could see he only spoke in cheap regurgitations of self-help books; fuck his perfect restraint or the way he didn’t _need_ restraint because he was all of him naturally good; fuck his kindness, and fuck patience, and fuck how he’d _met_ Eddie and immediately ruined Richie’s chance of getting the boy for himself, because who the hell could compare with this small town prince? And fuck that Richie couldn’t even _blame_ Eddie for preferring Bill, because Bill’s love would surely feel all sweet and safe and virtuous, while Richie’s was petty and tormenting and all-consuming; fuck Bill Denbrough and all he was that Richie wasn’t - fuck _him_.

The others stepped forth, yelled - but what did he care? Bill had stumbled out of the way. He ran off. Left that quaint fucking barn and cuddle bear cult behind. Beyond him the sprawling fields of wheat were glistening gold with sunlight, drying in the heat; and the sky was a blue so clear it hurt, and everything was blinding bright, a fever dream, and Richie followed the dirt path feeling as if he’d burn any moment, his skin would turn to crips, the Losers would find him there a blot of fire amid wheat.

He lit the cigarette, blew out some smoke. His knuckles stung. No blood, though. Neither his nor Bill’s. He was disappointed on both accounts. 

The way back to Derry was somewhat far. He planned to cut back to the forest. Visit the greenhouse - maybe for the last time. Maybe he’d take out all his shit and move. He didn’t want the Losers passing by, judging, looking with pity. Then again, the Losers might not want to see him at all. No, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t see him nor touch him, he wouldn’t see that crinkling little smile again, those fury eyes, those bratty… 

‘Richie!’ 

He froze in place. A hand touched his back. Slowly he turned: it was Eddie, panting a little, his skin flushed.

‘Of course they sent you,’ Richie sighed. ‘Of course they fucking sent you. Come on, Kaspbrak, bat your lashes at me.’

Eddie’s eyes, which had meanwhile been a lot like jittery flies, finally settled on him only for a second, only to glare. 

‘What the fuck are you on about?’ he murmured tersely. 

Richie let out a bitter, somewhat hysterical laugh around his cigarette. 

‘You’re a good actor, you know?’ 

‘I don’t-’ Eddie cut himself off with a huff. ‘Come back inside, Richie. We weren’t done talking.’ 

‘ _You_ weren’t talking very much at all.’

‘ _They_ weren’t done talking then.’

Through the faint cloud of smoke forming between them, Richie better looked at Eddie. He looked frustrated, an inch away from stomping his foot; and he really didn’t seem very happy to be there, shifting in place like he was desperate to run back to the barn. Yes, Richie had been right: the Losers must have forced him to come, they knew he was the only one Richie would stop for. It didn’t mean Eddie _wanted_ to be there, however. He was probably itching to go back to Bill, cradle his dented jaw, press ice to the bruise. He wouldn’t deign to touch Richie’s knuckles if he were to pour a gallon of alcohol on them first. 

‘Let’s make a deal,’ he said, feeling harsh, feeling _petty_ , blowing smoke at Eddie and watching him wince. ‘Look at me, Eddie. Fucking _look_ at me and I’ll go back with you. I’ll even sit nice and quiet and hear them out.’ 

And Eddie bit his lip, but it was only for a moment before he was clenching fists and looking at Richie. No skittering eyes, no anxious blinks: long and steady. What Richie saw there made him falter. Made him want to swallow the cigarette whole, feel the burn of it all the way down his throat, charring flesh, tracing black. He was well aware of the furious beating of his heart, there skipping beats, then doubling down, aiming for a timely suicide; and turrents of blood screened his eardrums; and his mind wasn’t so much working as it was chanting one distinct thought: “Eddie will never talk to me again, I might as well die.”

‘You hate me now, don’t you?’

‘Sometimes you say the most stupid fucking things.’

Richie smiled emptily, glancing up at the sky. 

‘You know, you’re the one who tells me that the most. Do you ever wonder why that is?’

He got no answer. Eddie was focused on digging a little hole in the dirt with his shoe. Richie watched, and watched until his heart ached, and then he spoke again, calmer now, soft. 

‘What do they still want to tell me anyway?’

‘Bill wants you to spend the night at his house.’

‘Bill?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I just punched the guy.’ 

‘He knows that.’ 

‘Of course he does,’ Richie laughed disbelievingly - no, believing it all too well. He took another drag. God, he fucking hated Bill sometimes. He was just so _good_. ‘You can tell him I’ll be there.’

Eddie blinked - then the meaning of Richie’s words caught up to him and he frowned. 

‘You said you’d come back if I looked.’

Richie dropped the cigarette on the ground, crushing it with his foot. 

‘I lied, Eds. How the fuck are you even surprised?’

And he left then, dared not turn back to look at Eddie, followed the stale dirt path in a sort of daze. But he could feel Eddie’s eyes on him the entire time, right until the path sloped down and he was out of view - and those eyes were a lot stronger than the sunlight, and they burnt. 

* * *

  
  


The walk back to the greenhouse was blurred. There were blots of green, glances of blue, paintbrush swipes of brown and charcoal; there was the snapping of twigs, the careful grazes of branches who bent down to pat his back, the knowing gossip of leaves who’d known from the wheat - and the forest altogether converged towards him, the trees smothered and barred his passage, underground rocks and roots cut through the surface to catch his feet. It took longer than it should, scraped and stung to show every single stick, flower and seed had joined efforts, but the greenhouse itself, when he at last broke through the trees, bowed down to him in peace, and all was gentle and quiet. 

He tread around the ground plants tenderly, hopped onto the top of the table fort and laid there, dead eyes set on the glass ceiling. More than once, he thought he’d fallen asleep. And when he _was_ awake, dazed and slow, he’d stare at the long crack in the glass panes above him, morbidly count its confluent courses, winding and cutting throughout the whole ceiling: and he’d wonder when would the wind blow hard enough, or a bird touch one of the cracks with the tip of its wing, or a leaf descend to rest its nothingness on the glass, and break it all down; and he wished it would happen then, that the Losers might find him like that, not the cold and violent thing who’d fled the barn like a terrified animal, but a pale corpse framed in greenhouse plants, stabbed by a hundred glass shards, glistening for once. 

He hopped down, threw both blanket and pillow onto the weeds, searched through all his bags, raked the soft dirt with his fingers, moved the tables and turned all his clothes. There were no more cigarettes. He kicked one of the tables. Its leg came off, the whole of it slid down slowly, a tragedy letting itself be seen. The table fort crumbled. Richie blinked, and blinked, and looked at his scattered things. Then he laid down on the ground and went back to sleep.

He was woken by a kick. 

Eddie was looking down at him, foot poised in the air, about to strike again. 

‘Wai-’

Another kick. Richie guessed he deserved it. He scrambled to sit up. On instinct, he scratched his eyes with the back of his hand: then he remembered _where_ he was laying, and he jerked his hand away. It, as well as the length of his arm, as well as the whole of him, was covered in dirt. Of course. He could only smile at himself, dry and resigned. 

‘You came to tell me Bill took back his offer?’ he asked, voice rough from sleep. 

‘What do you think?’ Eddie rolled his eyes.

It was fair. God knew Bill Denbrough would never do such a thing. Richie nodded, then with a groan he pushed himself up to his feet. His head weighed, an anchor eager for the ground once more. 

‘Why are you here then?’

‘Why did you say yes to Bill?’

‘You can’t answer questions with more questions, Eds.’

‘Your question is fucking pointless.’

‘Maybe to _you_ it is.’

‘You can’t _guess_ why I’m here?’ Eddie scoffed, flinging his hands into the air in frustration. He _sounded_ like the normal Eddie, warmth and fury hand and hand, love was violent with him, he _cared_ and it was like the ocean, and Richie had thought he’d never be lulled by those waves again. 

But he still remembered those eyes at the wheat field. He still felt the burn in his throat. 

‘You know, I can’t,’ he gritted out. ‘I really fucking can’t.’ 

Eddie looked at him a while. Then, with a sigh that was so unlike him, like he was fucking reigning himself in, he turned his back to Richie and gestured at the greenhouse. 

‘I was walking around the forest for over an hour,’ he started quietly. ‘Couldn’t find this place. I guess I wasn’t paying too much attention last time I was here. Fuck, I thought it was so _lucky_ that we’d found this place. I thought you were magic,’ his laugh was empty, it twisted Richie’s stomach. ‘But anyway, I was looking for it for so long. The forest feels stranger than normal. That makes no sense, but I swear… I fell. Scraped my knee,’ he was silent for a moment. When he turned back to Richie, he was more sad than angry, more hopeless than frustrated, and his tone was eerie soft. ‘Don’t argue with me, Richie. Don’t you fucking dare. You know you don’t have a leg to stand on.’

So Richie didn’t. Not a word. He stood, teeth welded shut. His eyes stung. He watched as Eddie walked around, and wished to every God he’d never believed in, and moreover every God he’d always hated, that Eddie wouldn’t leave him.

Then Eddie stopped next to one of the walls, threading fingers through the dark green ivy that had covered the glass.

‘The plants are nice.’

‘They are,’ Richie’s voice felt heavy in his throat.

‘Do you smoke in here a lot?’

‘When I can.’

‘I wonder if cigarette smoke affects plants.’ 

‘Nah. They’re tough,’ Richie drew a small smile, patting one of the climbing ivies fondly. He looked back at Eddie: they were on opposite sides of the greenhouse, but he could still see the red in his knee. It really was scraped. Strange how Richie had punched Bill, yet Eddie was the only one bleeding. ‘They’re like you.’

‘Shut up,’ Eddie said quietly, still flittering fingers through the ivy. ‘You didn’t answer my question. Why did you say yes to Bill?’ 

‘I don’t know whether you’ve forgotten, but my sleeping arrangements aren’t stellar at the moment.’

Eddie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

‘I know you, Richie. You would have slept here the rest of your life just to prove a point.’

Richie huffed a laugh. He didn’t speak for a moment, rather tapping a thoughtful finger against the glass. Then he sighed. 

‘You know, I’ve known Bill for longer than you have. We used to be best friends before you came along. I’d do shit, he’d fix it. I loved him.’

‘And you don’t anymore?’ Eddie frowned. He seemed almost scared - for Richie, or for Bill, or for himself, or for all the Losers, it wasn’t clear. 

‘Oh, I still do,’ Richie smiled a little. ‘But I hate him too. And he knows it, and he hates me a little too, but he’ll never admit it. Anyway, the point is... I don’t know. I guess the point is sometimes it’s easy to go back. I do shit, he fixes it.’

It killed him to admit it. To remember Bill Denbrough as the golden-haired boy tugging him sensibly by the arm when they were boring little children, barely people, gangly fucking things that thought friendship was sharing crayons and occasionally playing hide and seek. Even then, nothing as they were, Richie had seen the knight in Bill. The bold heart of a prince. And he’d liked it once, he’d felt invincible behind that shield. But then more Losers had come along, with them more bullies: and they’d all grown, and Richie wasn’t a gangly little thing anymore, he was bitter and he was angry, and when someone hit him he’d hit back. He didn’t fuck up like before, when he’d throw his pencil sharpener on the floor to see the colourful pencil shavings twirl in the air like confetti, or throw an eraser at the other kids in class, or pull some girl’s hair - he’d fuck up because he’d gotten in a fight during lunch break, because he was turning in all his quizzes blank save for the scribbling on the edges, and Bill wouldn’t fix it anymore. He’d frown. The day he’d started smoking, Bill had pinched his eyebrows very firmly, and Richie had thought for the first time: who’s he to judge? And then they’d met Eddie Kaspbrak, and Richie had coined him a pixie in a minute and fallen in love in less. And each time Eddie smiled at Bill - because Bill was so effortlessly nice and impossibly understanding, sensible and peaceful and fucking Ghandi with an athletic body and endearing stammer, while Richie stuck to the shadows, pinching and tormenting and trying to quit smoking every week so Eddie might be proud of him just _once_ \- Richie would grow a little more resentful. He wouldn’t say it aloud, but Eddie had really been the end of their friendship. Because Richie was suddenly put on the other side of Bill’s shield, and Eddie was kept behind it. 

Eddie seemed to understand the delicacy of the matter. He didn’t ask any more questions. They were silent once more, glancing absently at their ends of the greenhouse, watching the forest through gaps in the thick ivy. 

‘Richie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ 

Richie sighed, pressing his forehead against the glass. 

‘I didn’t want to.’ 

‘What a genius fucking answer,’ Eddie scoffed behind him. ‘Why didn’t you want to?’ 

‘Well, what were you going to do?’ Richie snapped his head back in his direction. ‘I can’t imagine Mamma Kaspbrak would be thrilled to have me crashing under her roof.’ 

‘I don’t know,’ Eddie was faltering, seeming both ashamed and determined. ‘If nothing else I could make this a bit nicer. Get you some shit. Keep you company.’ 

Richie couldn’t help a frustrated laugh. He’d stepped away from the glass and the ivy and Eddie had done the same: they were circling each other, slowly growing closer.

‘Eddie, you wouldn’t have fucking stepped foot here.’ 

‘I’m fucking standing here right now!' Eddie hissed.

‘And I bet you’re itching for the disinfectant in your bag.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Bullshit!

‘I’m not!’

‘Eddie, I saw you when you found out someone was sleeping here. You were practically crawling out of your skin.’ 

That made Eddie’s step stutter. They were much closer now: Richie could see the glint of helplessness in his eye, the way it was expertly hidden behind frustration. 

‘I didn’t know it was you.’ 

‘And what’s the fucking difference?’ 

Eddie’s gaze skittered down. ‘I don’t know, but there _is_ a difference.’

‘Not to you! Shit, Eddie, you cried because of rain!’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ now Eddie was clenching his fists, sparking fire out of his eyes. ‘Fuck, Richie, that’s not fair!’ 

‘It fucking makes sense though, doesn’t it?’ 

‘No! I have phobias, you idiot, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you!’ 

‘Well I- wait, _what_?!’

Richie didn’t mean for his voice to get quite so loud. It bounced off the glass panes, ricocheted throughout the greenhouse, and Eddie, as if he were attacked by the echo of his words, shrunk and winced and sighed. Anger had been replaced by exhaustion when he next spoke. 

‘You’re my best friend, Richie. You know I love you.’

‘Right, of course,’ Richie laughed. It wasn’t a _disappointment_ exactly, they were still the sweetest words Richie could conceive, and he could still appreciate them eager and thankful like a parched man handed a glass of water, though he knew the difference between a glass that’s full and a glass that’s spilling over the edges. ‘Well, we’re in the middle of a fucking argument here, so would you quit being cute?’

Eddie crossed his arms, looking at him pointedly. 

‘This isn’t an argument. I told you not to argue with me, because you don’t have _shit_ to say.’

He’d opened his mouth to concede to that, to be silent again and meek like a child that’s disappointed a parent - like he _imagined_ a child might be, he had always scraped the ends of his errors until his nails were chipped, fighting and shouting and lying in hopes he could excel at the wrong until it became right - when suddenly something hurt roused inside him. 

‘I think that’s bullshit. I think I _get_ to be angry. What was that at the barn, huh? At least those fucking knuckleheads _tried_ to help. You wouldn’t take your damn eyes off a _sheep_.’ 

‘I was mad!’ 

‘That _I’m_ homeless?’

‘That you didn’t fucking tell me!’ 

‘We’ve been over this,’ Richie huffed. ‘I thought you’d run off if I told you.’

‘We’re best friends!’

It tugged at Richie’s heart, the confident way in which Eddie said it, like Richie was not so much involved in the decision as himself, like Eddie had _claimed_ him. But he was still that child with chipped nails at heart, and he looked away. 

‘That’s not the point.’

‘It _is_ the point. It should always be the point,’ Eddie insisted. Then, to Richie’s surprise, he sighed and reached out to squeeze Richie’s arm softly. ‘I could have helped. I’d have made this place a _lot_ better.’ 

Richie snorted. ‘Oh and I’m sure you would have kicked ass. Best interior designer in Derry,’ he smirked, but it was fond, and Eddie’s eyes twinkled. He missed that little hand as soon as it slipped off his arm. ‘It’s not so bad, though. I’ve got a blanket. And Bev got me some other stuff.’ 

And suddenly, very suddenly because Richie thought they were _done_ with all the anger, Eddie jerked back, blinked once, twice, and his lips pressed into the thinnest line. 

‘You told Beverly?’ 

Richie felt the small ball in his throat that was all arguments and comebacks fall to the bottom of his stomach. 

‘She didn’t tell you guys?’ he murmured. Eddie answered with a glare, and Richie laughed weakly. ‘Fuck. _Fuck_. How is she better at hiding _my_ secrets?’

Eddie just shook his head. 

‘Of course you told Beverly. Of course you told her. And that’s why you slept in her bed and wore her shirt… fuck, I bet she’s known from the start. I bet she’s been here all the _fucking_ _time_.’

And with that he was walking off, trampling the little plants, and Richie chased him and grabbed his arms to keep him still. 

‘Would you quit thinking whatever the fuck you’re thinking? God, if you only knew how fucking ridiculous you sound right now.’

‘Oh I’m ridiculous?’ Eddie hissed, sounding more hurt by the second. 

‘Yes! Do you actually think there’s any reason in the world for you to be jealous of Bev?’

‘Yeah,’ it didn’t really seem like Eddie was looking at _him_ anymore - more at the bridge of his nose. ‘Yeah, I do.’ 

Richie could only laugh, dry and frustrated and _lovesick_. ‘How can you think she even compares-’

Eddie kissed him. 

It was not much more than a brief and furious press of lips. A kiss that made a point. And it wasn’t the first kiss of typed or staged romance, but it _was_ the type of kiss one might expect from Eddie Kaspbrak the fire fairy: Richie had dreamt of it for years, had detailed it almost perfectly, this harsh little kiss of impatient love; and in these dreams he’d always tamed that flame by pressing Eddie to himself, holding his waist tight, joining their lips again - so he did the same now, desperate hands squeezing onto those dainty hips, because whether or not this was a fluke in reality, a fluke in Eddie’s fucking brain, or maybe even a fluke in his own, some sort of twisted hallucination brought by an ill and malnourished heart, he knew it was not meant to last. 

He was right. Eddie jumped out of his hold and dried his lips with his arm. 

Richie, on his part, had to take a few breaths.

‘Did you.. did you just kiss me?’ 

‘No,’ was Eddie’s immediate reply. He was staring hard at the ground. 

‘Are you sure? Because it fucking _felt_ like-’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Eddie hissed, and Richie did, but only to surge forward and kiss him again, his own angry kiss, his own point to be made, to get _something_ through Eddie’s little fucking skull - after all, Richie might know that he was very primly fitting his foot in a serrated bear trap, but the second before the pain would be so _sweet_ , how could he resist? Eddie’s jaw felt so warm and delicate when Richie cradled it, his lips were cherry red and cherry sweet, his nose digging into his cheek was the best thing in the entire fucking world… then Eddie stepped away again. 

‘Okay,’ Richie breathed, trying very hard to be some semblance of calm. ‘Am I missing something here?’ 

‘Yes. No,’ Eddie was biting his lip - his lip Richie had just _kissed_ \- and tapping nervous fingers against his bare thighs. ‘No… no to this.’ 

‘No to this?’ Richie arched an eyebrow. ‘It’d help if you weren’t talking like a first-grader, Eds.’ 

‘I don’t want to do this!’ Eddie snapped. He took another step back, like he didn’t know that pretend delicacy of his had always wound Richie up, always made him itch and torment him more, pinch him, pull his hair, because his little coyness stirred in Richie a dark urge to bare his teeth like Bowers did, graze them hard and light on supple skin, make Eddie whine and keen and fucking _cry_ for him. 

‘You kissed me first,’ Richie took his own step forward. 

‘I shouldn’t have.’

‘You didn’t want to?’ 

Eddie huffed, dug a frustrated hand into the soft flesh of his thigh, but there was no other answer. It was enough to encourage Richie. 

‘Get over here.’ 

‘No.’

‘Get the fuck over here, Eds.’ 

And Eddie went, looking down all the way through, clenching his jaw when Richie gingerly molded his hand around it once more - but he didn’t flinch, didn’t move away; and he still didn’t move when Richie took his other hand to his hip, softly digging his fingers into the swell there, gentle, slow, in a daze of his own. He wanted to memorize the way Eddie felt like this, if this was all of him he’d have: wanted to imagine himself reaching out to every greedy, repressed, miserable ghost of himself throughout the years and telling them it _would_ happen, if only for a moment. That their suffering and yearning had not been for nothing. 

He bent down to kiss Eddie again, soft but firm, and this time, to his fucking shock, Eddie looped arms around his neck and answered hungrily, parting his mouth for him, making a low contented sound. _That_ was his Eddie, his fearless ninja, warrior, samurai, and the situation might be absolutely surreal but _they_ were the same, so Richie tugged him closer, licking greedily into the warmth of Eddie’s mouth, then running his teeth through those strawberry plump lips that had been his goal in life since he knew what kissing _was_. And it was impossible, nothing had gone wrong yet, Eddie hadn’t pushed him off, no monsters nor pitchfork men had shown to hound him, and it had to be a dream but it didn’t feel like one, so Richie dared coax Eddie’s head first to the left, then to the right, for no real reason other than to test that he _could_ , that bratty, demanding, haughty as a fucking princess Eddie Kaspbrak would let him; and that done, feeling Eddie obey so easily, fingers twining sweetly in his black curls, he started walking them backwards, towards his table fort. Most of the tables had fallen when he’d broken the bottom one, but one still stood, Richie pressed Eddie against it and Eddie, the fucking perfect tease he was, hopped onto it to splay his knees on each side of Richie’s legs. _Now_ it couldn’t possibly be real, so Richie sneaked a hand under Eddie’s t-shirt, grazing reverent fingers across the smooth left side of his middle, and _pinched_. 

‘The fuck?!’ Eddie shrieked, and the way his crotch jerked against Richie’s stomach sent a hungry wave of heat down his spine. 

‘Just checking I’m not in a dream,’ Richie panted, nosing down Eddie’s throat, that graceful curve he’d admired for so long, littering it with wet, open-mouthed kisses.

‘You’re supposed to pinch _yourself_ , you idiot.’ 

Richie hummed, then brought up his other hand: and Eddie knew him well but he was too slow, by the time he caught Richie’s wrist there were already fingers pinching his right side. 

‘You’re such an asshole,’ Eddie glared - but his tone was a sort of breathy that made Richie groan low in his throat, and his ankles were crossed behind Richie’s legs, keeping him there, keeping him _close_ , and Richie couldn’t find it in him to be even a little bit sorry. He swiped a tender thumb through the spot he’d just pinched, then pressed into it a bit. He hoped he’d leave twin red bruises on his sides, but he knew only a pinch couldn’t hope to leave much of a mark: God knew he’d tried when they were kids, when he hadn’t quite known romance but he’d wanted Eddie to be _his_ ; and he’d pinch and poke and prod wherever Eddie most showed skin, then minutes later seek the area with eagle eyes, desperate to see some lingering red. It’d been a childish thing - he was childish now. Childish, petty, fucking possessive. He wanted to bruise Eddie’s delicate skin, sweeten the red and purple with his kisses. So he bit more harshly at Eddie’s throat, somewhere too high for the collar of his shirt to hide it, and Eddie made a sound like a fucking _whimper_ in response. 

‘I knew you’d be an asshole,’ he was still muttering. There might be frustration in his voice, but afterwards Richie could feel sweet, teasing little kisses against his neck. Fuck, he wanted to see what else those pouty lips could do, how wide they could stretch. He pressed further against Eddie and realized, his mind very close to short-circuiting, that there was an unmistakable hardness against his stomach, heat bleeding into him. Experimentally, he ground against Eddie, the slightest friction for the both of them, fucking _blissful_ nonetheless, and Eddie downright _moaned_. 

'Fuck, and I just _knew_ you’d be the cutest little kitten if I could get you like this,' Richie panted - and he was about to try his luck at slipping his hand under those precious fucking shorts when suddenly Eddie gripped his hair tight, pulled him back and skittered away completely, his eyes wide, his lips red and spit-slick, his legs trembling a little where he stood a step away from Richie. And Richie was all instant defenses: while he blinked, slightly dazed, processing the loss of Eddie’s lips against him, he was already striving to bury every detail of the experience deep inside him, where hope lived and cried and none of Eddie’s denials could corrupt them.

‘Eds?’ he scrambled to keep his voice together. ‘What’s wrong?’

Eddie just shook his head. 

‘I’m gonna go away now.’ 

‘No, you’re not,’ Richie frowned, but when he stepped forth to take him by the hand Eddie jumped away.

‘Yes, I fucking am.’ 

‘Let’s talk about this first.’ 

‘No,’ Eddie was slowly walking backwards, looking anywhere but at thim. ‘I have to think first.’

‘I heavily advise against that,’ Richie smiled weakly - and this time he couldn’t keep his voice from cracking, because he might be trying to pick up those bleeding pieces of his heart and put them back in his sleeve, but he was much too shocked, too tired, and they had _kissed_. ‘Don’t think, Eds. Please.’

Eddie’s answering smile was a sad little thing. 

‘That’s your thing, Trashmouth, not mine.’ 

And Richie was following him, posture placating, trying to grab his arms and keep him still for a _second_ , but Eddie was keeping his distance, he was at the archway now, and there really was no hope, there was nothing, Richie was lost. 

‘Eddie! Eddie, before you go, just…’ he rushed out, he was desperate, nervously swiping hair from his forehead. ‘You’ll come back, right? Come back. Tomorrow… night. Tomorrow night. That’s a lot of time to think.’ 

Eddie faltered, bit his lip. ‘I don’t know.’ 

‘You said you’d keep me company.’ 

‘I… yeah,’ Eddie nodded, tried a smile, it fell in a second. ‘Yeah. Maybe. I’ll be here.’ 

And he left. Didn’t say anything else. Didn’t turn back. Richie watched him go, and wondered whether Eddie had felt quite so helpless when Richie had been the one walking off back at the wheat fields - except then the world had been hopeful with golden leaves and warm sunlight, and here the trees swallowed Eddie in dark green, and it felt as if he were gone forever. 

Richie stood staring for a moment longer. Then he got on his knees and went through all his shit again. He really fucking needed a smoke. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me on discord at autumn#2451


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